Bug - explainshell services has no /api path, so arg tips doesn't work

[palansher]

Hello!

Thanks you for nice tool!

bash-language-server/server/src/analyser.ts

Line 636 in afd0d82

const url = `${endpoint}/api/explain?${searchParams}`

If replace

const url = `${endpoint}/api/explain?${searchParams}`

to

const url = `${endpoint}/explain?${searchParams}`

then will be working requests like this:
https://explainshell.com/api/explain?cmd=grep+-v+%22current%22

to https://explainshell.com or custom buit https://github.com/idank/explainshell

The reason of that: there is no /api path supported on known explainshell services.

Currently all requests to /api return 404 error

[skovhus]

Thanks, they must have changed their URL. Are you up for doing a PR?

There is some documentation and a security warning here:
https://github.com/bash-lsp/bash-language-server/tree/main/vscode-client#configuration

[palansher]

Are you up for doing a PR

Hello! Maybe I can. If you kindly explain what is 'PR' , you mentioned :)

The Pull Request? I am a junior coder, But I will try.

[skovhus]

Yes, I meant a pull request. :)

[a-priestley]

Yes, I meant a pull request. :)

Hey there. I've had bashls installed for a while now using lspconfig in neovim, and I'm only just now deciding to dive into the config a bit more -- I just happened across this issue.

The fix is a super easy one-liner it looks like (get rid of /api) from the url const as discussed above.

But it may be a better idea to drop all hard-coding aside from the "?" preceding the search parameters? We don't know how the endpoint could change in the future so a more flexible approach could be more appropriate.

Edit: I opted to submit the PR with just the removal of the "/api" prefix, but I'm curious to know your thoughts on the above.

[a-priestley]

I just tested this out using the new release. I didn't realize that this is supposed to parse JSON? But the endpoint returns HTML. There's an abandoned PR for a JSON endpoint on shellexplain, but currently no such functionality exists.
I'm curious to know if explainshell integration has ever worked in the past?

[gryffus]

BUMP
related to #1080

[skovhus]

@gryffus Contributions are more than welcome.

[gryffus]

@skovhus In the meantime, I have created quick and dirty wrapper, that fetches explainshell HTML output and outputs it as following Json
Example input: "ls -luh -all"

Example output:
curl http://localhost:5000/api/explain?cmd=ls+-luh+-all
{"getargs":"ls -luh -all","helptext":[["list directory contents","help-0"],["<b>-l</b> use a long listing format","help-1"],["<b>-u</b> with <b>-lt</b>: sort by, and show, access time with <b>-l</b>: show access time and sort by name otherwise:\n sort by access time","help-2"],["<b>-h</b>, <b>--human-readable</b>\n with <b>-l</b>, print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)","help-3"],["<b>-a</b>, <b>--all</b>\n do not ignore entries starting with .","help-4"]],"matches":[{"commandclass":"command0","end":2,"helpclass":"help-0","match":"ls","spaces":"","start":0,"suggestions":[]},{"commandclass":"command0","end":5,"helpclass":"help-1","match":"-l","spaces":" ","start":3,"suggestions":[]},{"commandclass":"command0","end":7,"helpclass":"help-2","match":"u","spaces":" ","start":6,"suggestions":[]},{"commandclass":"command0","end":9,"helpclass":"help-3","match":"h","spaces":" ","start":8,"suggestions":[]},{"commandclass":"command0","end":12,"helpclass":"help-4","match":"--all","spaces":" ","start":10,"suggestions":[]},"status":"success"}

The vscode plugin is now not throwing error, but I still do not get any popup.

Can you please tell me what is the Json format that bash-language-server is expecting? If the explainshell implementation ever worked, can you please tell me with which docker image it was?

Thank you very much for cooperation.

[skovhus]

Can you please tell me what is the Json format that bash-language-server is expecting? If the explainshell implementation ever worked, can you please tell me with which docker image it was?

The docker image is hard to restore, that essentially what #180 is about. So we should just start over.

Can you please tell me what is the Json format that bash-language-server is expecting? If the explainshell implementation ever worked, can you please tell me with which docker image it was?

Code can be found here: https://github.com/bash-lsp/bash-language-server/tree/main/server/src/shellcheck

[gryffus]

The docker image is hard to restore, that essentially what #180 is about. So we should just start over.

That's what I am doing, but I need to at least know what is the expected Json format

Code can be found here: https://github.com/bash-lsp/bash-language-server/tree/main/server/src/shellcheck

Are you confusing shellcheck with explainshell? The directory you sent has no explainshell references I could find.

[gryffus]

With my current wrapper, this is what I get (no error, but no popup):

curl http://localhost:5000/api/explain?cmd=ls
{"getargs":"ls","helptext":[["list directory contents","help-0"]],"matches":[{"commandclass":"command0","end":2,"helpclass":"help-0","match":"ls","spaces":" ","start":0,"suggestions":[]}],"status":"success"}

[skovhus]

Are you confusing shellcheck with explainshell? The directory you sent has no explainshell references I could find.

My bad. See

bash-language-server/server/src/analyser.ts

Line 626 in 80f6cc2

// explainshell needs the whole command, not just the "word" (tree-sitter

[gryffus]

Thank you!