[Davide244]

Fixes #19197

When pasting into the value of a cref attribute in a C# documentation comment, < and > in the pasted text are converted to { and }.

/// <see cref="$$"/>        // paste: Dictionary<string, List<int>>
/// <see cref="Dictionary{string, List{int}}"/>

Implementation

New CrefPasteCommandHandler (C# only), modeled on StringCopyPasteCommandHandler:

• Lets the normal paste go through, then applies the fix as a separate undo transaction, so a single undo restores the raw pasted text.
• Only acts when every edit from the paste lies inside a single cref attribute value (between the quotes).
• Does nothing if the pasted text contains quotes or line breaks, or if another component also edited the buffer.

VB is not included, since (Of T) is already valid in crefs.

Tests

CrefPasteCommandHandlerTests covers empty and partially filled crefs, nested generics, generic methods, pasting over a selection, single-quoted crefs and undo. Negative cases: doc comment text, other attributes, before the attribute value, pasted quotes, regular code and string literals.

Microsoft Reviewers: Open in CodeFlow

[azure-pipelines]

Azure Pipelines:
Successfully started running 2 pipeline(s).
There may be pipelines that require an authorized user to comment /azp run to run.

[Davide244]

This looks really good! You mentioned adding an option to disable in the issue linked. I feel that this should be the default behavior, but an opt-out option would follow the precedent for existing features, like "format on paste" and "add import on paste".

Thanks! Agreed, I'll add an opt-out option (so default on) and follow the existing dotnet_fix_string_contents_on_paste setting (a PerLanguageOption2 checked by the handler, with a checkbox on the C# Advanced options page and VS options storage/automation registration)

[jasonmalinowski]

Great feature! some small tweaks/additions for tests, but this is otherwise quite close.

[Davide244]

I have added the opt-out option csharp_fix_cref_on_paste (default on) with a checkbox under Tools > Options > C# > Advanced, next to "Fix text pasted into string literals".