vscode-pawn

Pawn tools for vscode.

Currently this is a port of the Sublime Text package which includes proper Pawn syntax highlighting, autocompletions for the standard library and some popular libraries.

If you like development tools that speed up your workflow and increase productivity, check out sampctl!

Coming soon:

• Static Analysis
• Auto-complete
• Intellisense support

Installation

Just search for "Pawn Tools" in the vscode extensions and install it.

Alternatively, you can check out the source code or view the marketplace page:

• GitHub Page
• Marketplace Page

Compiling Pawn Code

To actually compile after you've set up the tasks.json below, press CTRL+Shift+B (Windows) or CMD+Shift+B (Mac), or alternatively open up the command palette with CTRL+Shift+P (Windows) or CMD+Shift+P (Mac) and type Run Task, hit enter and select build-normal.

If you use sampctl it's the same process except you'll have four options in the Run Task list:

• build only - build the package
• build watcher - build the package on every file change
• run tests - run the package
• run tests watcher - run the package on every file change

With sampctl package init

If you're using sampctl, the sampctl package init command will automatically generate a vscode tasks.json if you selected vscode in the editor part of the setup menu.

If you've already got a package but you didn't do this, you can simply download the tasks.json from the Pawn Package template repo.

Once you've done that, there's no more setup needed!

Creating tasks.json

Code uses a method called "Tasks" to run compilers and build tools. All you need to do is create a folder named .vscode in your project's directory and in there, create a file named tasks.json.

Then paste the following relevant snippet into that file, depending on your primary shell:

PowerShell

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "label": "build-normal",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "${workspaceRoot}/pawno/pawncc.exe",
      "args": ["${file}", "--%", "-Dgamemodes", "-;+", "-(+", "-d3"],
      "group": {
        "kind": "build",
        "isDefault": true
      },
      "isBackground": false,
      "presentation": {
        "reveal": "silent",
        "panel": "dedicated"
      },
      "problemMatcher": "$pawncc"
    }
  ]
}

Command Prompt (cmd.exe)

This example includes no escape characters, so you can adapt this to other shells such as Bash, Oil, Fish, etc.

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "label": "build-normal",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "${workspaceRoot}/pawno/pawncc.exe",
      "args": ["${file}", "-Dgamemodes", "-;+", "-(+", "-d3"],
      "group": {
        "kind": "build",
        "isDefault": true
      },
      "isBackground": false,
      "presentation": {
        "reveal": "silent",
        "panel": "dedicated"
      },
      "problemMatcher": "$pawncc"
    }
  ]
}

Explanation

"command": "${workspaceRoot}/pawno/pawncc.exe", is the important bit here, this is the path to your Pawn compiler and I've assumed most of you have a left-over pawno folder from that long dead text editor! This folder not only contains Pawno but also the Pawn code compiler (pawncc.exe). You can safely delete pawno.exe forever.

"args": [...], is also important, this is where you define the arguments passed to the compiler. Pawno also did this but you might not have known. The defaults have always been -;+ to force semicolon usage and -(+ to force brackets in statements.

If you store your Pawn compiler elsewhere, just replace the entire command setting with the full path to your compiler.

Also, if you want to disable debug symbols (you won't be able to use crashdetect) just remove -d3 from "args".

problemMatcher is the part that allows recognising the Pawn compiler output and presenting it in the problems panel of the editor. This doesn't work well with external includes because the paths change from relative to absolute. sampctl fortunately fixes this (and a lot of other annoying things).

Features

Currently just syntax highlighting and completions from the Sublime project.

Once the Pawn-Parser project reaches a workable state, this extension will feature more language features such as intellisense support, go-to-definition, view-all-references, etc...

Here's what the problems panel looks like when the tasks.json is set up properly: