Microsoft/vscode

Dragging-n-dropping a file with tilde in the name into terminal

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#276999 opened on Nov 12, 2025

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 (6 comments) (1 reaction) (1 assignee)TypeScript (74,848 stars) (10,221 forks)batch import
bughelp wantedterminal-input

Description

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

  • VS Code Version: 1.105.1
  • OS Version: Arch Linux

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Create a file with one or more tilde ("~") character(s) in its name
  2. In the EXPLORER view navigate to that file
  3. Open TERMINAL tab
  4. Drag and drop the file with tilde in its name from the EXPLORER to the TERMINAL

Expected behavior: File path should appear copied into the terminal

Actual behavior: Tilde character(s) gets silently dropped in the copied/pasted path. This results into an invalid path pointing to a non-existent file.

EDIT.

Tilde turns out to be not the only character that gets silently dropped this way. This issue is reproducible whenever at least one of the following characters is present in the file name:

~ - Tilde
` - Backtick
! - Exclamation
# - Hash / Number Sign
$ - Dollar Sign
^ - Caret or Circumflex
& - Ampersand
* - Asterisk
| - Vertical Bar or Pipe
; - Semicolon
< - Less-Than Sign
> - Greater-Than Sign

Contributor guide

Tech stack
typescriptelectron
Domain
desktopdeveloper 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.
half day
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
blocked
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
TypeScriptVS Code development setupElectron drag and drop eventsShell character escaping
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
45
Research direction
Investigate the drag and drop event handling in the terminal extension (likely in src/vs/workbench/contrib/terminal/). Look for how file paths are constructed from dropped items. The issue indicates that certain characters are stripped; examine the code that processes the dropped file path for shell escaping. Check for any sanitization or encoding that might remove these characters. Consider testing with the characters listed in the issue to reproduce the behavior.