Document behavior of begin/end?

[studyingegret]

VSCode: 1.70.1 Explicit Folding: 0.21.0 Language: C

I'm trying to fold code with sections like this:

/// Section A
a
b
/// ---

/// Section B
c
d
/// ---

into this:

/// Section A ...

/// Section B ...

When I use:

"explicitFolding.rules": {
    "c": [
        {
            "begin": "///",
            "end": "///"
        },
    ]
}

the folding ranges appear correctly.

But when I use:

"explicitFolding.rules": {
    "c": [
        {
            "begin": "///",
            "end": "/// -"
        },
    ]
}

no folding ranges appear.

Did I misunderstand anything?

[daiyam]

You can use "explicitFolding.debug": true, to print some info in the output panel.

With the non-working rule, you will get:

[main] regex: /(?<_0_0>\/\/\/)|(?<_2_0>\/\/\/ \-)|(?<_0_1>\{\{\{)|(?<_2_1>\}\}\})/g
[main] line: 43, offset: 0, type: BEGIN, match: ///, regex: 0
[main] line: 46, offset: 0, type: BEGIN, match: ///, regex: 0
[main] line: 48, offset: 0, type: BEGIN, match: ///, regex: 0
[main] line: 51, offset: 0, type: BEGIN, match: ///, regex: 0
[document] foldings: []

The begin is matching both markers...

With the following rule, it is working as you intended:

{
	"beginRegex": "\\/\\/\\/(?! -)",
	"end": "/// -"
},

[studyingegret]

Thanks. It looks like the begin pattern and the end pattern must have no overlap, or the begin pattern will take precedence.

What about noting this in the documentation?

[daiyam]

Yep, I did forgot to add that...

[studyingegret]

Another solution is to use "nested": false to disable nesting, which will make the rule truly unambiguous (tested).

{
    "begin": "///",
    "end": "/// -",
    "nested": false
}

[studyingegret]

But "nested": false disables all other folding ranges within the folding ranges created by this rule, which means code in sections cannot be further folded. So your solution is the ultimate solution.

I guess beginners will be confused by this for a while...