VSCode Snippets Not Working In Python? Reason and Alternatives

Code snippets are, well,  templates. Those templates are letting, for example, Python users insert code that often recurs, constructs like loops and conditional statements more quickly.

This option saves you a lot of time and trouble and makes your programming life more manageable. However, since 2021 you have been having trouble finding the snippets.

In this article, we will discuss what happened to them and how you can still use them in your everyday programming activities.

Snippets In Visual Studio Code – What Are They?

As already mentioned in the introduction, code snippets are very useful templates.

Snippets are going to be seen in Visual Studio Code’s IntelliSense (Ctrl+Space). Also, you could find them in other recommendations in a separate snippet selector (Insert Snippet in the Command Palette).

Additionally supported is tab-completion: Type a snippet prefix (trigger text) and click Tab to enter a snippet after setting “editor.tabCompletion”: “on” to enable it.

With the exception of “interpolated shell code” and the usage of u, both of which are not supported, the snippet syntax is identical to that of TextMate.

What Happened To VScode Snippets In Python – Why Are They Not Working?

The Visual Studio Code snippets are not working because they were removed from the Python extension.

The snippets have primarily received criticism because they are difficult to understand and overwhelming, especially for novices and students.

Since they were frequently mentioned as being inconvenient, Python decided to get rid of them.

However, since many programmers utilize custom snippets which are still beneficial to many people, there are some alternatives.

Keep reading if you want to find out how to use VS code snippets even after Python removed them!

VSCode Snippets In Python – Alternatives

In this section, we will give you valuable links, so save this article so you can easily reach them at any point. 

Alternative #1. Creating Your Own Snippets

First, if you want your snippets back, you can copy them from here and create your own snippets. 

How do you do that? Well, here is a detailed instruction over here. However, we will list the instructions just below. 

Without using an extension, you may easily define your own snippets. 

Select Configure User Snippets under File. Then go to the Preferences. If you are using macOS, go to Code, and then select Preferences to add or edit your own snippets. 

Next, choose the language in a language identifier – in which you want the snippets to appear. The other solution is to choose the New Global Snippets file option. Choose this if you want them to appear in all languages. 

The underlying snippet files are created and refreshed for you by VS Code.

Snippets files may define an infinite number of snippets, allow C-style comments, and are written in JSON. Snippets facilitate multiline editing and support most TextMate syntax for dynamic behavior. They also intelligently style whitespace based on the context of their insertion.

An illustration of a JavaScript for loop snippet is shown below:

// in file 'Code/User/snippets/javascript.json'
{
  "For Loop": {
    "prefix": ["for", "for-const"],
    "body": ["for (const ${2:element} of ${1:array}) {", "\t$0", "}"],
    "description": "A for loop."
  }
}

In the earlier illustration:

The name of the snippet is “For Loop.” If no “description” is given, it is shown using IntelliSense.

“prefix” specifies one or more trigger words that IntelliSense uses to show the snippet. Prefixes are used for substring matching. Therefore in this instance, “fc” may match “for-const.”

“body” is a line or lines of text that, when inserted, will be merged to form a single line. The formatting of newlines and embedded tabs will depend on the context in which the sample is placed.

The excerpt that IntelliSense displays may have an optional “description”.

Additionally, there are three placeholders in the “body” of the example above (stated in traversal order): “${1:array}”, “${2:element}”, and “$0”. 

With “Tab”, you may swiftly go to the following placeholder, where you can alter it or move on to the one after it. The default text, for instance, “element” in “${2:element}”, is the string that comes after the colon “:” (if any). 

Beginning with one, placeholder traversal order is ascending; zero, an optional special case that always comes last and leaves snippet mode with the cursor at the provided location, is the last placeholder.

Alternative #2. Python Snippets

There is another solution to this problem, and the solution is to use the collection of Python and VSCode snippets provided by Python. 

This is basically a snippet pack containing a lot of Python methods. People who need it find it very useful, so it might also be very helpful to you. 

Here you can find the snippets, examples, and more! Also, here is the GitHub link.

There you go! Now you have two alternatives to get back your VScode snippets back and continue your good work!