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Variables that are built-in constants are not highlighted, like $Error and $PSVersionTable #218
Description
Prerequisites
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- Make sure you are able to repro it on the latest version
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Steps to reproduce
Noticed that both VSCode and GitHub doesn't highlight some variables, like $Error and $PSVersionTable
This:
```powershell
#Requires -Version 5.1
<#
.SYNOPSIS
This is just to test code highlighting.
#>
# Input and expected output
[OutputType([System.Void])]
Param()
# Preference variables
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
$InformationPreference = 'Continue'
# User defined variable
$SomeVariable = [string] 'Text'
# Built-in constants
$Error
$PSHOME
$PSVersionTable
# Values
string without quotes
'string with quotes'
```Looks like this on GitHub:
#Requires -Version 5.1
<#
.SYNOPSIS
This is just to test code highlighting.
#>
# Input and expected output
[OutputType([System.Void])]
Param()
# Preference variables
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
$InformationPreference = 'Continue'
# User defined variable
$SomeVariable = [string] 'Text'
# Built-in constants
$Error
$PSHOME
$PSVersionTable
# Values
string without quotes
'string with quotes'
And in VSCode:
Expected behavior
Highlight.js demo https://highlightjs.org/demo does as I expect it to:
PowerShell ISE and the PowerShell terminal too:
Actual behavior
Steps to reproduceError details
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Environment data
PowerShell 7.4.1 x64 on Windows 11 23H2
VSCode 1.87.2, vscode-powershell v2024.0.0 and v2024.3.1-previewVersion
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[-]Some variables are not highlighted, like `$Error` and `$PSVersionTable`[/-][+]Variables that are built-in constants are not highlighted, like `$Error` and `$PSVersionTable`[/+]o-l-a-v commentedon Mar 1, 2026
Is the problem that the defined textmate scope does not have a theme selector?
In https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/extensions/powershell/syntaxes/powershell.tmLanguage.json I see:
{ "captures": { "0": { "name": "support.constant.variable.powershell" }, "1": { "name": "punctuation.definition.variable.powershell" }, "3": { "name": "variable.other.member.powershell" } }, "comment": "These are the other built-in constants.", "match": "(\\$)(?i:(Error|ExecutionContext|Host|Home|PID|PsHome|PsVersionTable|ShellID))\\b" }Which results in textmate scopes
support.constant.variable.powershell source.powershell, which says foregroundNo theme selector.So maybe it just uses wrong textmate scope?
o-l-a-v commentedon Mar 1, 2026
Dracula theme have worked around this like so https://github.com/dracula/visual-studio-code/blob/main/src/dracula.yml:
VSCode built in themes does not have it, like "Dark Modern":
tokenColorsfrom: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/main/extensions/theme-defaults/themes/dark_vs.jsonI think the fix should be to use a TextMate scope that is more common in VSCode themes.
This was suggested to me by Gemini Fast and worked in my testing with VSCode + Dark Modern theme:
support.constant.variable.powershell.variable.other.readwrite.constant.powershell.C# uses
variable.other.readwrite.cs:andyleejordan commentedon Apr 23, 2026
Did #223 resolve this?
RedCMD commentedon Apr 24, 2026
yup