Incorrect syntax highlighting for rf strings

[janosh]

Environment data

• VS Code version: 1.36.0
• MagicPython version: 1.1.1
• OS: macOS 10.14.5
• Color scheme: Dark+ (default dark)
• Python version: 3.6.7 (miniconda)

Expected behavior

Combining raw strings and f-strings, I'd expect syntax highlighting inside curly brackets.

Actual behavior

But what I get is the uniform dark red color of raw strings.

Related

Issue was originally raised in microsoft/vscode-python#6572.

[lmcarreiro]

Another related problem: microsoft/vscode-python#2445

Update: the lower case r is not wrong, it is a feature to use for regex: #114 (comment)

[vpetrovykh]

To reiterate: there's a feature highlighting lower-case r strings as regexp, while upper-case R as simply raw. Using upper-case R should get you the result you want. Compare:

plt.title(
    (f"{label}: " if label else "") + r"$y_\mathrm{true}$ vs $y_\mathrm{pred}$"
)

plt.title(
    (f"{label}: " if label else "") + R"$y_\mathrm{true}$ vs $y_\mathrm{pred}$"
)

plt.title(
    (Rf"{label}: " if label else "") + R"$y_\mathrm{true}$ vs $y_\mathrm{pred}$"
)

The lower-case r was chosen for the special treatment largely due to a precedent that some existing highlighters offered this convenience already.

[kelvinwop]

capital R makes it do the fstring highlighting

[janosh]

@vpetrovykh Thanks for this advice. Unfortunately, it's not currently usable with black formatting since black automatically lower cases r-string prefixes. I opened black#1244 to discuss this.

[elprans]

@janosh Use --skip-string-normalization for black to disable the lowercasing behavior.

[janosh]

@elprans IIUC, this has other effects besides preventing r-string prefixes from being lower cased (such as not converting single to double quotes).

Btw, just tested it and it works with auto-format on save by adding skip-string-normalization = true under [tool.black] to pyproject.toml.

[gazzar]

I think this decision by the MagicPython devs to apply additional special meaning to a part of the Python language definition is a mistake. I've been wondering for a while why all my raw strings (which are almost never regex's) are highlighted weirdly by VSCode. It's nice to finally understand what's going on but it imposes mysterious behaviour on downstream projects. The simple question is, can this behaviour be disabled by downstream projects by some configuration option?

[Mjb141]

I have struggled with this issue constantly. Sometimes disable -> enable works and gets the f-strings highlighting back, but when using WSL this is no longer possible. With MagicPython installed I still don't have f-string highlighting:

How do I consistently, without needing to install and reinstall, get the f-string highlight?

[1st1]

I think this decision by the MagicPython devs to apply additional special meaning to a part of the Python language definition is a mistake.

FWIW I agree, that probably was my mistake. The problem is that reverting this isn't an option now -- as magicpython is used by GH to highlight Python code and by multiple IDEs. Millions of people use it daily. To be fair, millions of people used TextMate & SublimeText before that also highlighted r'strings' as regexps.

@vpetrovykh @elprans That said I think that fr'strings' shouldn't be highlighted as regexps, so perhaps we should revert that change.

I have struggled with this issue constantly. Sometimes disable -> enable works and gets the f-strings highlighting back, but when using WSL this is no longer possible. With MagicPython installed I still don't have f-string highlighting:

That seems like a not relevant issue. Perhaps your editor has some plugin that interferes with MagicPython.

[vpetrovykh]

Yes, looks like f-strings should be format strings first and foremost, regardless of what other flavor they have.

[elprans]

+1 for handling fr'foo' as f-strings. As for the r-strings, we can probably ship an alternative grammar file and have downstream make their choice.

[gazzar]

I think this decision by the MagicPython devs to apply additional special meaning to a part of the Python language definition is a mistake.

FWIW I agree, that probably was my mistake. The problem is that reverting this isn't an option now -- as magicpython is used by GH to highlight Python code and by multiple IDEs. Millions of people use it daily. To be fair, millions of people used TextMate & SublimeText before that also highlighted r'strings' as regexps.

I think that, at least in the case of VSCODE, they might be happy if this behaviour was reverted. I'm not sure about GH or the other IDE devs' opinions; you would know better than me. Would it be possible to overload the parser to provide an alternative API that the IDEs could swap to or expose to their end users to select whether to use the regex-highlighted version or a plain-string version?

[adamkeinan]

I've had the same problem lately. Drove me crazy.
1.checked all my setting to verify there's no overlap
2.check the extensions folder to verify i don't have inconsistent versions
3.simply re-selected my Interperter+path, and that did the job

[justanotheranonymoususer]

capital R makes it do the fstring highlighting

Stumbled upon this today, too. Doesn't make sense and confusing. Would be great to get this fixed.

[silkfire]

Why hasn't this been fixed yet? Shouldn't be that hard to add r to the same highlighting category as R.