Microsoft/vscode

(Web, Safari) Copying and pasting line with colon and no leading space results in URL encoding of pasted text

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#235,666 opened on Dec 9, 2024

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 (5 comments) (1 reaction) (1 assignee)TypeScript (74,848 stars) (10,221 forks)batch import
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Description

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

  • VS Code Version: Web
  • OS Version: iPadOS 18.1 (Safari)

VSCode Web on iPadOS/Safari appears to be erroneously encoding certain copied text as a URL.

So copying this string of text from a VSCode Web file: foo: bar

And pasting it into another VSCode web file will result in: foo:%20bar

This is only the case if there isn’t a space before the colon anywhere on the line. So, foo: bar and foo bar: baz both copy and paste normally.

This also only happens within VSCode web. So, copying foo: bar from an external app and pasting it into VSCode Web or copying foo: bar from VSCode web into another app both work fine.

I have not been able to reproduce this on VSCode Web on Mac or Windows.

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. On iPadOS on Safari, open a new file on VSCode Web (or Github Codespaces)
  2. Write text foo: bar
  3. Copy to clipboard, where the first character of selection is NOT whitespace
  4. Paste into same file.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0dca81bb-fee2-4623-9ed4-0441ff70231e

Contributor guide

Tech stack
typescriptjavascript
Domain
frontenddeveloper experience
Issue type
bug
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
JavaScript clipboard APISafari browser quirks
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
50
Research direction
The issue likely stems from VS Code's web clipboard handling on Safari, particularly for text containing a colon without leading space. Investigate the clipboard read/write logic in the source code of VS Code Web, focusing on how it handles the 'text/plain' MIME type. Check for any automatic URL encoding that Safari might apply to text strings that resemble URLs. Look for platform specific code or workarounds in the web build that could prevent this encoding.