Confusing error message "no @startuml found"

Copied a uml document from Jira, it lacks the @enduml tag and I get the confusing error message “no @startuml found”.

To reproduce, create a file with the following uml:

@startuml
:Hello world;
:This is defined on
several **lines**;

Then press Alt+D:

Adding the @enduml tag fixed the problem. However, for a newbie pasting some random puml this was a bit confusing.

[fuhrmanator]

Took me some time, but I think it’s here: https://github.com/qjebbs/vscode-plantuml/blob/376caa7a89bc00f181f4ce13cc6603bc1c78c9ff/src/plantuml/renders/local.ts#L49

Here’s how to reproduce it:

$ java -jar plantuml.jar -verbose -pipe < test.puml > out.png

Then view the out.png:

I tagged the PlantUML developer so he hopefully will see it here.

[DanielSundberg]

I also wanted to report this upstream but gave up since I could not get plantuml.jar to report the same error.

If we reported this as is I’m pretty sure PlantUml would say it’s a problem in this vscode-plantuml (since we get different behavior using plantuml command line).