#DevHack: How to rename a file from a VSCode extension

Renaming a file is something that we do very often, but in my case, I wanted to do it from within a Visual Studio Code extension. When I first looked at the APIs and available documentation, I found the vscode.executeDocumentRenameProvider command and RenameProvider.

Now, I thought, there must be an easier way, so I started to look around at the APIs available, and luckily there is an easy option.

On the vscode, its workspace namespace, you can access the fs or file system via: vscode.workspace.fs. The fs instance delivers you a couple of valuable methods you could use, like rename.

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If you want to rename a file, you just need to use the rename method as follows:

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const editor = vscode.window.activeTextEditor;
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if (editor) {
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  await vscode.workspace.fs.rename(editor.document.uri, vscode.Uri.file(newPath), {
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    overwrite: false
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  });
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}