File management of Visual Studio Code on clusters

Description Visual Studio Code, commonly known as VSCode, is a popular tool used by programmers worldwide. It serves as a text editor and an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that supports a wide variety of programming languages. One of its key features is its extensive library of extensions. These extensions add on to the basic functionalities of VSCode, making coding more efficient and convenient.

However, there's a catch. When these extensions are installed and used frequently, they generate a multitude of files. These files are typically stored in a folder named .vscode-extension within your home directory. On a cluster computing facility such as the FASTER and Grace clusters at Texas A&M University, there's a limitation on how many files you can have in your home directory. For instance, the file number limit could be 10000, while the .vscode-extension directory can hold around 4000 temporary files even with just a few extensions. Thus, if the number of files in your home directory surpasses this limit due to VSCode extensions, you might face some issues. This restriction can discourage users from taking full advantage of the extensive features and extensions offered by the VSCode editor.

To overcome this, we can shift the .vscode-extension directory to the scratch space. The scratch space is another area in the cluster where you can store files and it usually has a much higher limit on the number of files compared to the home directory. We can perform this shift smoothly using a feature called symbolic links (or symlinks for short). Think of a symlink as a shortcut or a reference that points to another file or directory located somewhere else.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to move the .vscode-extension directory to the scratch space and create a symbolic link to it in your home directory:

1. Copy the .vscode-extension directory to the scratch space: Using the cp command, you can copy the .vscode-extension directory (along with all its contents) to the scratch space. Here's how:

cp -r ~/.vscode-extension /scratch/user


Don't forget to replace /scratch/user with the actual path to your scratch directory.

2. Remove the original .vscode-extension directory: Once you've confirmed that the directory has been copied successfully to the scratch space, you can remove the original directory from your home space. You can do this using the rm command:

rm -r ~/.vscode-extension


It's important to make sure that the directory has been copied to the scratch space successfully before deleting the original.

3. Create a symbolic link in the home directory: Lastly, you'll create a symbolic link in your home directory that points to the .vscode-extension directory in the scratch space. You can do this as follows:

ln -s /scratch/user/.vscode-extension ~/.vscode-extension

By following this process, all the files generated by VSCode extensions will be stored in the scratch space. This prevents your home directory from exceeding its file limit. Now, when you access ~/.vscode-extension, the system will automatically redirect you to the directory in the scratch space, thanks to the symlink. This method ensures that you can use VSCode and its various extensions without worrying about hitting the file limit in your home directory.