Send to Interactive doesn't correctly handle indented code and comments

Highlighting code and hitting “Send it to Interactive” is an extremely important feature to have working robustly.

However, the handling of indentation is extremely buggy.

One of the easiest demonstrations is the following: put this in a python script

def something_that_has_indented_code():
    x = 1

    y = 1

    # A comment
    z = 3

    return

now highlight starting from the line above y=1 to the end of the line y=1. You’ll get randomly either or

Now send it to interactive.

>>>     y = 1
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    y = 1
    ^
IndentationError: unexpected indent

Now highlight the comment and z-line:

Send to interactive

>>> # A comment
...     z = 3
... 
  File "<stdin>", line 2
    z = 3
    ^
IndentationError: unexpected indent

Loops don’t execute properly because of indentation handling. Test code:

def something_that_has_indented_code():
    x = 1

    y = 1

    # A comment
    z = 3

    while(True):
        if x == 10:
            raise Exception('paste fail')
            break

        # this is a comment
        x = x + 1
        bob = 'bob'

        # ------ Hello ------ #


        # some comment
        # another
        print('Counter is %s' % x)

        if x == 4: 
            break

    a = 2

highlight the following

Send to interactive

>>> x = 1
>>> y = 1
>>> # A comment
... z = 3
... 
>>> while(True):
...         if x == 10:
...             raise Exception('paste fail')
...             break
...         # this is a comment
...         x = x + 1
... 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 3, in <module>
Exception: paste fail
>>> bob = 'bob'
>>> # ------ Hello ------ #
... 
... 
... # some comment
... # another
... print('Counter is %s' % x)
... 
Counter is 10
>>> if x == 4:
... 
  File "<stdin>", line 2
    
    ^
SyntaxError: unexpected EOF while parsing
>>> break
  File "<stdin>", line 1
SyntaxError: 'break' outside loop
>>> a = 2
>>> 

All of this demo was in VS 2019 16.1.0 preview 2.0. These problems are very old (years).

[RaymonGulati1]

@joseortiz3, thank you for reporting this issue. I’m going to take a look at it.

[joseortiz3]

I don’t think the current behavior is expected behavior. Handling indentation should be smarter than that.