debugger not working properly with the latest vscode 1.60.2 and the "julia 1.4.3" extension.

[MariusDrulea]

When I debug, the "All" package list in always empty. I have vscode 1.60.2 and the "julia 1.4.3" extension. Two weeks ago everything was running fine but something got updated in the background.

[pfitzseb]

That list is only populated when a Julia REPL is running.

[MariusDrulea]

which is therefore the recommended way to debug?

1. Run with debugging (F5) - it starts a Julia Debugger console
2. start a REPL and start the debugging session here

[pfitzseb]

Either way is fine, though I'd usually recommend not using a separate process. That's also not really relevant to the symbol list you were talking about originally -- nothing's stopping you from just having a REPL session running alongside the separate debugger process or whatever. And you also don't really need this "All" list since you can add/remove functions or modules by clicking the + button.

[MariusDrulea]

I am currently playing with option1. I have manually set all the packages to be "compiled" except for "Main". "Main.Base" and "Main.Core" are set to "compile" as well. Strictly my scripts are set to be interpreted.

The effect is that the debugger only stops at the run_normals() function, see above picture. When I "Step in" all the breakpoints are skipped, the debugger no longer stops. Am I missing something?
settings.json.txt

[pfitzseb]

Well, breakpoints don't work in compiled code.
Can't say more without knowing your code though.

[MariusDrulea]

I have created a very simple code for this. I want to debug strictly my_fun and nothing else. Except for Main.my_fun which is "interpreted", eveything else is set to "compile", including Main.Base and Main.Core. The debugger is able to stop at line 7. However it does not step inside my_fun.
I think I might have set to "compile" some dispatch mechanism in Julia which steps inside a function.
How I debug: I keep a Julia REPL open + choose Start Debugging from the menu.

[MariusDrulea]

@pfitzseb : thanks for this quick fix.
I would like to contribute with testing, as debugging is a really important feature to have for julia.
Once the fix is merged into master, can I test it with julia-insider + regular vscode (not vscode-insider)?

[pfitzseb]

There's no fix, I tagged this issue by accident.
Generally I wouldn't recommend setting Main as compiled, and definitely not all of Base.

[MariusDrulea]

I noticed if I set All->Main.Base as compile and All->Main.Core as interpreted, everything works as expected. However, when I run my larger code, debugging is slow in the following code, second line.

wide_arr = Matrix{UInt16}(undef, stride, height)
img_data[:, :] = Matrix{UInt8}(wide_arr[:, 1:width] .>> 4)   # debugger is very slow in this line

There was this broadcasting operation which was set to "interpreted" in Compile->Base. Set it to compile and the debugger is able to quickly execute that line.

[pfitzseb]

Yeah, that's a matter of configuration, basically. Broadcasting is interpreted by default because it's often used with user-defined functions (much like map and similar higher order functions).

[MariusDrulea]

We have Base and Core in the following locations:

1. Compiled->Base, Compiled->Core
2. All->Base, All->Core
3. All->Main.Base, All->Main.Core

Q1: Is there a priority list for 1, 2 and 3? E.g. a setting in 3 overrides the same setting in 1.

Q2: I am able to edit the "Compiled" list via the text file in "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\settings.json". Is there a similar file for the "All" list? it is a lot easier to edit this list via txt file.

The reasons behind Q2 are:
R2.1 I have some for-loops in my larger code which are very slow in the debug mode. I need to set lots of All->Main.Core to "compiled" (e.g. Int16, toInt, Vector etc).
R2.2 I can send the configured txt file to other people working with me, rather then having everyone clicking in the IDE.

[MariusDrulea]

For Q2, it's possible to set the desired "Main.Core.Int64" and many others manually in the IDE and then save the current configuration as default. The setting.json file will contain these items.

I am still trying to figure out which of the Main.Core items have to stay "interpreted" such that we can step inside functions.

[pfitzseb]

The default is to compile everything in Base except for the functions and modules explicitly listed as interpreted, so you should never need to set a bunch of functions as compiled yourself.

Q1: No, no special order. One of these definitions will win out, but it's basically undefined which one.
Q2: No, that's runtime generated. And you don't need to use it at all anyways.

[MariusDrulea]

Bug inside debugger? I have noticed when I set All->Main.Core.Vararg to "compile", the debugger crashes with the following error:

 Error: Some Julia code in the VS Code extension crashed
└ @ VSCodeDebugger c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\error_handler.jl:15
ERROR: TypeError: in Type, in parameter, expected Type, got Vararg{T, N}
Stacktrace:
  [1] signature_type(f::Any, args::Any)
    @ Base .\reflection.jl:793
  [2] _methods
    @ .\reflection.jl:856 [inlined]
  [3] methods(f::Any, t::Any, mod::Nothing)
    @ Base .\reflection.jl:912
  [4] methods (repeats 2 times)
    @ .\reflection.jl:935 [inlined]
  [5] set_compiled_functions_modules!(items::Vector{String})
    @ VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\packages\DebugAdapter\src\debugger_requests.jl:157
  [6] set_compiled_functions_modules!
    @ c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\packages\DebugAdapter\src\debugger_requests.jl:173 [inlined]
  [7] set_compiled_items_request(conn::VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC.JSONRPCEndpoint{Base.PipeEndpoint, Base.PipeEndpoint}, state::VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter.DebuggerState, params::NamedTuple{(:compiledModulesOrFunctions,), Tuple{Vector{String}}})
    @ VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\packages\DebugAdapter\src\debugger_requests.jl:99
  [8] debug_notification(conn::VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC.JSONRPCEndpoint{Base.PipeEndpoint, Base.PipeEndpoint}, state::VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter.DebuggerState, params::VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter.DebugArguments)
    @ VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\packages\DebugAdapter\src\debugger_requests.jl:41
  [9] (::VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter.var"#120#146"{VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter.DebuggerState})(conn::VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC.JSONRPCEndpoint{Base.PipeEndpoint, Base.PipeEndpoint}, params::VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter.DebugArguments)
    @ VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\packages\DebugAdapter\src\packagedef.jl:49
 [10] dispatch_msg(x::VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC.JSONRPCEndpoint{Base.PipeEndpoint, Base.PipeEndpoint}, dispatcher::VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC.MsgDispatcher, msg::Dict{String, Any})
    @ VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\packages\JSONRPC\src\typed.jl:67    
 [11] macro expansion
    @ c:\Users\some_user_name\.vscode\extensions\julialang.language-julia-1.4.3\scripts\packages\DebugAdapter\src\packagedef.jl:76 [inlined]       
 [12] (::VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter.var"#143#169"{VSCodeDebugger.var"#3#4"{Tuple{String, String}}, VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC.JSONRPCEndpoint{Base.PipeEndpoint, Base.PipeEndpoint}, VSCodeDebugger.JSONRPC.MsgDispatcher})()
    @ VSCodeDebugger.DebugAdapter .\task.jl:411

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