Using of hello_debugger with VSCode on Windows

[Elias-Johansson]

Hello Ben,

thank you very much for your project! Could you clarify whether it is possible to use hello_debugger with VSCode on Windows? It built and installed without errors. So I can find google.cppdap-example-hello_debugger-1.0.0 in my .vscode\extensions and VSCode shows that google.cppdap-example-hello_debugger-1.0.0 is enabled. My launch.json looks like this:

{
"version": "0.2.0",
"configurations": [
{
"name": "cppdap: hello_debugger",
"type": "hello_debugger",
"request": "launch"
}
]
}

However, when I choose "cppdap: hello_debugger" and start debugging, nothing happens. Log (Window) reports the following errror:

[2020-01-17 15:24:36.857] [renderer1] [error] timeout after 500 ms: Error: timeout after 500 ms
at t.RawDebugSession.handleErrorResponse (file:///C:/Users/Elias/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:2821:819)
at file:///C:/Users/Elias/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:2821:250
at async t.RawDebugSession.shutdown (file:///C:/Users/Elias/AppData/Local/Programs/Microsoft VS Code/resources/app/out/vs/workbench/workbench.desktop.main.js:2819:336)

--
Thanks Elias.

[ben-clayton]

Hi @Elias-Johansson,

I'm sorry you're having difficulties running the example.
I just tried the example on Linux, which worked as expected.
I wrote the example on macOS, and I don't think I've changed anything since that was last tested.
Which leaves Windows...

Unfortunately I don't currently have a Windows machine to hand to test this on. I will have one next week, so I will try testing then.

Before then, do you get any useful information when enabling the LOG_TO_FILE macro in hello_debugger.cpp?

Many thanks,
Ben

[Elias-Johansson]

Hi @Elias-Johansson,

I'm sorry you're having difficulties running the example.
I just tried the example on Linux, which worked as expected.
I wrote the example on macOS, and I don't think I've changed anything since that was last tested.
Which leaves Windows...

Unfortunately I don't currently have a Windows machine to hand to test this on. I will have one next week, so I will try testing then.

Before then, do you get any useful information when enabling the LOG_TO_FILE macro in hello_debugger.cpp?

Many thanks,
Ben

I tried to enable the definition of the LOG_TO_FILE macro and specify the path to the existing file (#define LOG_TO_FILE "C:/Users/Elias/Documents/log.txt"). For some reason, it logs nothing.
--
Thanks Elias.

[Elias-Johansson]

Ben,

I manually changed "program": "hello_debugger" to "program": "hello_debugger.exe" in .vscode\extensions\google.cppdap-example-hello_debugger-1.0.0\package.json. Subsequently, I disabled and enabled google.cppdap-example-hello_debugger-1.0.0 again in VSCode extensions.
Now it logs the attached data.

log.txt

However, I cannot step over and toggle breakpoints. As far as I understand, hello_debugger generates the synthetic file source. Is it possible to interactively debug the synthetic file source as a usual file, which is opened in VSCode?

--
Thanks Elias.

[ben-clayton]

Hi Elias,

Yes, the executable extension is probably quite important. Good find. :)
I'll be sure to update the CMake template generation to add this suffix to the program name.

The log file suggests that the debugger hasn't responded to the initialize request, which is odd. However, this might just be a lack of file flushing. Is there any more content in the file if you close VSCode after attempting to use the sample debugger?

However, I cannot step over and toggle breakpoints. As far as I understand, hello_debugger generates the synthetic file source. Is it possible to interactively debug the synthetic file source as a usual file, which is opened in VSCode?

Yes, that is the intended behaviour of the example. When I make it back home, I'll try and reproduce on my Windows box.

Cheers,
Ben

[Elias-Johansson]

Hi Ben,

Yes, the executable extension is probably quite important. Good find. :)
I'll be sure to update the CMake template generation to add this suffix to the program name.

The log file suggests that the debugger hasn't responded to the initialize request, which is odd. However, this might just be a lack of file flushing. Is there any more content in the file if you close VSCode after attempting to use the sample debugger?

Yes, it adds the following:

"Content-Length: 79

{"command":"disconnect","arguments":{"restart":false},"type":"request","seq":2}"

I've attached the updated log file.

log_new.txt

However, I cannot step over and toggle breakpoints. As far as I understand, hello_debugger generates the synthetic file source. Is it possible to interactively debug the synthetic file source as a usual file, which is opened in VSCode?

Yes, that is the intended behaviour of the example. When I make it back home, I'll try and reproduce on my Windows box.

Thanks.

--
Best,
Elias

[ben-clayton]

Hi @Elias-Johansson,

Thank you for your patience. Lots was broken - my apologies.

I've created PR #13 that should fix your issues.

It's also worth mentioning you'll need to enable VSCode's Debug: Allow Breakpoints Everywhere option in order to be able to set the breakpoint in the synthetic file.

Please let me know how you get on.

Thanks,
Ben

[Elias-Johansson]

Hi Ben,

Everything works fine. Thanks for the quick response and fix!

--
Best,
Elias

Thank you for your patience. Lots was broken - my apologies.

I've created PR #13 that should fix your issues.

It's also worth mentioning you'll need to enable VSCode's Debug: Allow Breakpoints Everywhere option in order to be able to set the breakpoint in the synthetic file.

Please let me know how you get on.