Render references to source code lines inline

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/cc @markglenfletcher

Hi @abitrolly,

First of all, thank you for raising an issue to help improve the GitLab product. We're sorry about this, but this particular issue has gone unnoticed for quite some time.

We're posting this message because this issue meets the following criteria:

No activity in the past 6 months (since 2018-08-06T04:25:56.074Z)
No milestone (unscheduled)

We'd like to ask you to help us out and determine how we should act on this issue.

If this issue is reporting a bug, please can you attempt to reproduce on the latest version of GitLab or GitLab.com, to help us to understand whether the bug still needs our attention.

If this issue is proposing a new feature, please can you verify whether the feature proposal is still relevant.

Please mention the Triage team (@gitlab-org/triage) for help with applying labels

Thanks for your help!

You are welcome to help improve this comment.

@jramsay What do you think?

added Create [DEPRECATED] devopscreate merge requests typefeature labels

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added UI polish [deprecated] Accepting merge requests frontend labels and removed auto updated awaiting feedback labels

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Is there a label for markdown processor?

#223046 also touches this.

mentioned in issue #223046

added sectiondev label

Setting label(s) Category:Source Code Management based on groupsource code.

added Category:Source Code Management label

added Category:Code Review Workflow groupcode review labels and removed Category:Source Code Management groupsource code labels

@mvanremmerden I believe this is no longer relevant. If you agree, please close.

@vkarnes Still relevant, this is the behavior the author would like to see from us, and we currently don't have a way to enable that, only for single lines: https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/30203/files#diff-8a0f115fde6769c122b771b6d0eca184c4580f7b5fabe2f0b0579c679424364fR433-R437

Further detail: It works for single files (e.g. https://gitlab.com/mvanremmerden/gitdock/-/blob/main/myApp.js#L3-L6), but not for the MR page where we are comparing different file versions with each other.

Still very relevant

@mvanremmerden Sorry to ask a question about an old comment, but how is this possible to use for single lines? AFAIK, we don't support inline rendering of code for either single or multiple lines.

It's already been mentioned elsewhere, but I believe this is what the original author is looking for. GitHub has had it for some time (a couple of years, more?):

(example from https://github.com/perlang-org/perlang/issues/398#issue-1734768946)

@perlun You are absolutely correct, the issue scope has significantly changed, you can see that in this update to the description: #22156 (comment 1087344555)

Ah, nice catch. Thanks for that.

added severity4 label

@vkarnes is this supported now? I recently tried to do this and was not able to figure out how.

You can link to a block (line range), but it is not rendered into a code snippet on the comment side.

(Github will render a code snippet in this case)

@paul.tiplady It doesn't look like it's available yet. Sorry for the confusion. More details here.

Screenshot for the example how it should look like. Right now I am constructing this manually by copy pasting snippet and link.

added 1 deleted label

Sad that after all these years this functionality does not exist as on Github

I just spent a while trying to get a permalink to code as it exists in a given commit..

https://gitlab.com/repo_name/-/blob/BRANCH_NAME/path/to/file/some_file.sh#L12-115

replacing the branch with the commit sha manually:

https://gitlab.com/repo_name/-/blob/COMMIT_SHA/path/to/file/some_file.sh#L12-115

but that's a pain vs "copy permalink" as I'm used to

According to https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/quality/issue-triage/#severity this issue needs severity:2 label.

"I can figure out why this is happening, but it's really painful to solve." Users are significantly delayed by the available workaround.

Is this how you attract quality staff, by having such clear guidelines? #ColorMeImpressed

mentioned in issue #351147

changed title from Reference source lines from discussion to Permalinks to reference source lines from discussion

Feedback that this feature would be useful came in through #351147 (comment 1081793743).

@phikai, any feedback/insights you can give us or point us to the right PM? Sounds like linking to pieces of code and embedding them could be a very useful addition to the issue experience

@nick_vh I'm not quite sure I understand the feedback in that issue and how it relates to this issue. In that issue, it seems to be implied that a link like https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/ee/app/models/ee/project.rb#L338-340 wouldn't work. However, when I click on that, it takes me directly to that line of code.

I think this issue is asking for a typefeature that if you put a link like that in a comment/description, we would automatically render that as a code block in markdown.

I think that's a great idea for a feature, and something I've wanted to do with Snippets when I worked on that category. For this particular issue, I think we can re-label it for source code as that's the likely group that would need to pursue this.

The link https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/ee/app/models/ee/project.rb#L871-875 should point to Project#ci_minutes_usage, but the code location drifted away from the time the comment was written. Now the link takes to a different line of code, which is confusing.

In GitHub when permalink to code is inserted, it refers specific revision, allows to go to the code+revision at this location and also renders the snippet in the current message.

Isn't that what the Permalink option is for at the top of the page? If you need to reference a file at a specific source, you click the Permalink button and then it gives you a permanent reference.

It is not me who made this drifting link, so I guess it is UX problem. Maybe clicking on the line number should propose some choices or get a hint.

@phikai for example https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/63575#issuecomment-1231933560

I see what's happening here. So the feature exists but there is confusion how to use it. I suggest we close this issue and continue our discussions here #19480

The source code is still not readable inline. Ideally GitLab could automatically expand links like

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/app/models/project_ci_cd_setting.rb#L20

to turn them into snippets with permalink according to current revision at the moment of writing

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/3f1076db0d34c46f0bf4f824a268941bbc943e23/app/models/project_ci_cd_setting.rb#L20

I don't see why anyone would need to refer to lines that are not permalinks. It is only convenient for immediate online discussions like chats.

Updated description with the proposal above, leaving only rendering part here.

removed severity4 label

removed Create [DEPRECATED] label

added Category:Source Code Management groupsource code labels and removed Category:Code Review Workflow groupcode review merge requests labels

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added automation:ux-missing-labels label

changed title from Permalinks to reference source lines from discussion to Render references to source code lines inline

changed the description

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The generic solution to this is a bot that can unfurl links https://github.com/probot/unfurl

Such bot has a potential of sharing code with unfurl requests like Slack integration.

I don't think this feature should be seen as a bot's task. I'm sure bots will struggle to work with private repos

I'm sure bots will struggle to work with private repos

I don't know how they operate with GitLab permissions, but why should they?

A bot can only automate what @abitrolly does manually: #22156 (comment 792323238)

This would still be a workaround as it is copy-pasting the code instead of offering a "native" preview of the code. That's something a bot cannot solve.

It would be a great addition to see the quoted code in a comment, like github does!
Nothing more than matching this : https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/working-with-advanced-formatting/creating-a-permanent-link-to-a-code-snippet

mentioned in issue #383161

mentioned in epic &1496

removed 1 deleted label

Render references to source code lines inline

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