VSCode autoimport keeps adding import { null } from 'mathjs';

[thunderkid]

I hope it makes sense to post this issue here - it really does seem specific to mathjs.

I'm using VSCode to edit a project that includes mathjs plus around 50 other libraries. After I've edited something I very often find that VSCode has inserted the line

import { null } from 'mathjs';

at the top of the file, which I then have to go and manually delete. Admittedly this only takes a few seconds, but since I have to repeat the process dozens of times per day, it becomes tedious.
This is coming from VSCode's auto-import feature, which I don't want to turn off since it's otherwise very useful. Of all the hundreds of packages that I've used over time, mathjs is the only one that I've ever found to do this.
Is mathjs exporting things in some non-standard way that would cause this problem? Is there some workaround?

[josdejong]

Thanks for reporting @thunderkid, that is frustrating.

I guess it is caused somehow because mathjs contains the value null on it's instance, like math.null, math.true, and math.false. This is only useful though when using those constants in the expression parser (that's why they are attached on the mathjs instance in first place)

I guess we can safely remove them from the exported instance, we only need to make sure they are available in the expression parser.

We have to figure out which export exactly does cause this autoimport in VSCode. Is this coming from the mathjs library itself or from it's type definitions?

[thunderkid]

Thanks for the answer. I don't know how to check whether the problem comes from the library or the type definitions.

In my configuration package.json contains the lines "@types/mathjs": "^6.0.5" and also "mathjs": "^7.2.0". Inside my node_modules folder I have a mathjs folder but no @mathjs folder. What should I remove to test this?

[josdejong]

I think it's coming from the TypeScript definitions. I created a project with mathjs and types, and choose the "autoimport" on null in VSCode. When I now Ctrl+click the null, I'm brought to the following line in the type definitions:

interface MathJsStatic extends FactoryDependencies {
        // ...
        null: number;
        // ...
}

https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/cf707b6cfc440d5dd3a1d6824a63d413854001ad/types/mathjs/index.d.ts#L54

I think we should do two things:

1. remove null from the TypeScript definition
2. do not expose null, true, and false on the mathjs instance, but only have them available inside the expression parser. We have to think that through though.

Anyone able to help out removing null from the TypeScript definitions?

[digimbyte]

just an update, I have this instance too but we're not using TypeScript
I use null values for state management and it keeps importing itself when I look away.
easy fix but it's getting old after 2 weeks

[josdejong]

Thanks for your input @digimbyte . Interesting to hear that this is also happening without TypeScript, though it may be that your IDE is using the TypeScript definitions under the hood anyway. What IDE are you using? VS Code?

Again: any help would be very welcome here, it shouldn't be too hard to create a PR removing null from the type definitions.

[digimbyte]

standard VS Code with "mathjs": "^9.2.0" it must be some sort of auto-complete but have no idea where or why it would be doing it.

…

On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 12:57 AM Jos de Jong ***@***.***> wrote: Thanks for your input @digimbyte <https://github.com/digimbyte> . Interesting to hear that this is also happening without TypeScript, though it may be that your IDE is using the TypeScript definitions under the hood anyway. What IDE are you using? VS Code? Again: any help would be very welcome here, it shouldn't be too hard to create a PR removing null from the type definitions. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2019 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABSWNFFONELUJSTXTMPKHC3THRXHNANCNFSM4TMAEIJA> .

[josdejong]

I wouldn't be surprised when VS Code would install type defininitions in the background when it finds them. A first easy step would be to see if removing the null from those type definitions fixes the issue already.

[wmr-trevor]

Just for a little more context here.

This is how I see VSCode showing that it'll auto import the null value.

Allowing it to import I see that the declaration is in @types/mathjs/index.d.ts on line 54 in my case. version 6.0.5.

Removing that line in the declaration file prevents VsCode from auto importing that null value.

[josdejong]

Thanks @wmr-trevor , so fixing this is really a oneliner at DefinitelyTyped 👍

Anyone able to create PR at DefinitelyTyped to fix this?