VS Code Debugger

Debugger configurations for Visual Studio Code

The launch.json file defines debug configurations for Visual Studio Code. This page includes examples demonstrating common launch.json setups.

Visual Studio Code Documentation

Debug Configuration

Procedure

1. Open the workspace directory in VS Code.
2. In the workspace root, create a .vscode directory if it does not already exist.
3. Inside .vscode, create a file named launch.json.

Python Example

Example Python Program

#_______________________________________________________________
# This file is named arg_test.py
#_______________________________________________________________
import argparse

if __name__ == '__main__':
  parser: argparse.ArgumentParser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
  parser.add_argument('--in0', '-i0', help='Input 0', action='store')
  parser.add_argument('--in1', '-i1', help='Input 1', action='store')
  args: argparse.Namespace = parser.parse_args()

  print(str(
    f'\nInput argument 0: {args.in0}'
    f'\nInput argument 1: {args.in1}'
    )
  )

Sample launch.json

This launch.json file contains two Python debug configurations with alternative inputs.

{ "version":        "0.2.0"

, "configurations":
  [ { "name"    : "sample py debug"
    , "type"    : "debugpy"
    , "request" : "launch"
    , "program" : "${workspaceFolder}/arg_test.py"
    , "console" : "integratedTerminal"
    , "args"    :
      [ "--in0", "42"
      , "-i1"  , "3.14"
      ]
    }

  , { "name"    : "alternate input sample py"
    , "type"    : "debugpy"
    , "request" : "launch"
    , "program" : "${workspaceFolder}/arg_test.py"
    , "console" : "integratedTerminal"
    , "args"    :
      [ "--in0", "64"
      , "--in1", "4096"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Select the icon for Run and Debug from the activity bar. Click the drop down menu and select a configuration in launch.json.

Key Descriptions

Key	Description
label	Name of configuration.
type	Type of debugger. Common values are debugpy for python, gdb for cpp.
program	Path to program to execute.
args	Arguments passed to the program.
console	Use integratedTerminal to use the VS Code terminal for program execution.

Example C++ Program

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
  int i = 0;
  i++;
  printf("\ni: %d", i);
  return 0;
}