CodeLLDB VS vscode-cpptools

Ok, so apparently here they are called 'data formatters' instead of pretty printers or debug helpers... https://github.com/vadimcn/codelldb/wiki/Custom-Data-Formatters

For debugging lldb supports python scripts: https://github.com/vadimcn/codelldb/wiki/Data-visualization

I use VS Code on Linux to debug Zig. Haven't tried the others you mentioned, but it just emits standard DWARF symbols, so I'm guessing if you can debug C/C++ you could probably also do Zig with minimal changes? I just use the lldb VS code plugin[0], which works out of the box for me with no issues.

https://github.com/vadimcn/codelldb

It's pretty bad, unfortunately. As you discovered, using the gnu toolchain works better with code-lldb (see more info here), but it still isn't great. CLion is a little better, but costs money and lacks support in other ways compared to VSCode.

- I tried to install codelldb: https://github.com/vadimcn/vscode-lldb without success.

Are you on Windows or Linux? On Windows I've had nothing but trouble getting code-lldb to display debug info for any sort of nontrivial data structure due to this issue, which means I need to switch to x86_64-pc-windows-gnu, but then that breaks other upstream crates that use cc to compile C++ code.

I've been using vscode-lldb with VS Code on macos, and I've been very happy with the experience so far.

Check this: https://github.com/vadimcn/vscode-lldb/wiki/Breakpoints-are-not-getting-hit

yeah since they updated the rust compiler for windows to use a different style of debugger symbols and since they changed that in CodeLLDB the variables output have not been the same. Though i believe the owner has been trying to fix it. But any issues you do have report them on the codeLLDB git https://github.com/vadimcn/vscode-lldb

Its close in spirit to DRM. They want to ensure that if you are using their projects, it must be under their terms.

Many of their VS Code extensions[0] have license terms which /prohibit/ them from being used in editors that are not Microsoft's VS Code editor, and Microsoft can issue cease-and-desist for violation of this or use of their extension marketplace in alternative editors.

Microsoft has a pattern they follow where they publish repositories on GitHub to proclaim they are open source, while actually distributing proprietary binary blobs in them that are fundamental core parts of functionality to the codebase[2][3][4]

[0] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/6388#iss...

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/5784

[2] https://github.com/microsoft/win32metadata/issues/766

[3] https://devlog.hexops.com/2024/building-the-directx-shader-c...

[4] https://github.com/microsoft/Azure-Kinect-Sensor-SDK/issues/...

The C/C++ extension is open source with MIT license but the shipped extension binary contains MS proprietary binaries that is not as open [1]. I am not sure what will be the difference between using MS official build and compiling the source (there will be some for sure).

[1] https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/blob/main/LICEN...

Now if only MS would fix VSCode[0] :'(. Come on, the feature if more than half a decade old and this point.

0: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/6302

🔗 Link to GitHub Issue: Add Similar Function - https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/11477

According to this: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/3423 it seems to be at least somewhat possible to reuse natvis files from Visual Studio, but I have not tested that. Never really had the need to look at any non-vector container in the debugger.

Thank you for the feedback! Perf is always an ongoing issue for us but I can say that we’ve recently allocated one of our senior engineers to take on more perf related issues. Something that really helps us out is if you could file reproducible steps that lead to your performance issue. This allows us to address the issues more readily. Please file your issues here: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues

Yes, see this github issue for an example: Add Ada to supported languages for debugging · Issue #10475 · microsoft/vscode-cpptools (github.com)

Nope https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/16