[FIXED] What does this command do in VSCode's CLI launch script?

Issue

In VSCode's (MacOS) launch script, we can find the following lines:

CONTENTS="$(dirname "$(dirname "$(dirname "$(dirname "$(realpath "$0")")")")")"
ELECTRON="$CONTENTS/MacOS/Electron"
CLI="$CONTENTS/Resources/app/out/cli.js"
ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 "$ELECTRON" "$CLI" "$@"

What is going on with the last line (which actually goes and executes the CLI)? Why is there a 1 in front of the command?

Solution

When you put a variable assignment at the beginning of a shell command, it sets that environment variable temporarily while running the command. So the last line is effectively equivalent to:

(
    export ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1
    "$ELECTRON" "$CLI" "$@"
)

The parentheses put the commands in a subshell, so the variable assignment doesn't persist.

Answered By - Barmar

Answer Checked By - Senaida (PHPFixing Volunteer)