Sublime snippets to VS Code CLI

Easily convert sublime xml snippet files to VS Code json snippets.

Quick start

Install locally or globally via a package manager of your choice.

Follow instructions from CLI help page. See example usage below.

subsnip2vsc -h

Conversion example

This tool can convert Sublime xml based snippet files to a VS Code snippets.json file. The tool aims to do 90% of the job with fine-tuning left to you.

dollarsign.sublime-snippet

<snippet>
	<content>
		<![CDATA[\${$0}]]>
	</content>
	<tabTrigger>g</tabTrigger>
	<scope>text.html.gsp</scope>
	<description>${}</description>
</snippet>

gactionsubmit.sublime-snippet

<snippet>
	<content><![CDATA[
<g:actionSubmit value="${1:text}" action="${2:action}" ${3:onclick="${4:jsCode}"} />]]></content>
	<tabTrigger>gactionsubmit</tabTrigger>
	<scope>text.html.gsp</scope>
	<description>Generates a submit button that maps to a specific action</description>
</snippet>

Converted to a single VS Code snippets.json file

{
  "dollarsign": {
    "body": "\\${$0}",
    "description": "${}",
    "prefix": "g"
  },
  "gactionsubmit": {
    "body": "\r\n<g:actionSubmit value=\"${1:text}\" action=\"${2:action}\" ${3:onclick=\"${4:jsCode}\"} >",
    "description": "Generates a submit button that maps to a specific action",
    "prefix": "gactionsubmit"
  }
}

Further, if the body has multiple new lines separated with \r\n it will be split into an array of lines as follows:

{
  "body": [
    "<g:collect in=\"${1:attribute}\" expr=\"${2:expression}\">",
    "\t{3}",
    "<g:collect>"
  ]
}

You can then fine-tune the snippet file further to suit your preferences.

CLI Usage examples

Convert all *.tmSnippet files in snippets folder and print output to screen

subsnip2vsc convert snippets/*.tmSnippet -p

Convert all *.tmSnippet files in current folder to default snippets.json file

subsnip2vsc convert *.sublime-snippet

Convert all .sublime-snippet files in folder and sub-folders of snippets. Send output to my-snippets.json file

subsnip2vsc convert snippets/**/*.sublime-snippet -o my-snippets.json

API usage

Using the API directly, lets you customize various aspects of the internal functionality.

const { convert } = require("subsnip2vsc");
// using the APIlets you pass a single or multiple glob patterns
const patterns = ["**/*.*.sublime-snippet, ../*.tmSnippet"];

// split snippet body text into array of lines
const splitBody = (content) => {
  // custom split body logic
};

// extracts string from element (see xml-js npm package)
const textOf = (elem) => {
  // custom text extraction of element
};

// returns json string for converted entry
export const convertEntry = (entry, options) => {
  // custom convert entry logic
};

const printSnippetEntry = (snippetJson, options) => {
  // custom print file logic
};

const writeResultFile = (jsonStr, options) => {
  // custom write file logic
};

const options = {
  print: true,
  textOf,
  splitBody,
  convertEntry,
  printSnippetEntry,
  writeResultFile,
};
convert(patterns, options);

Dev CLI example

The following example demonstrates how you can call the binary directly in development mode while setting the work directory to a location of your choice (used as relative location for searching, reading and writing files)

npx cross-env .\bin\subsnip2vsc convert sublime-snippets/**/*.sublime-snippet -d C:/Users/xxxx/source/repos/vsc-extensions