Developing with Visual Studio Code on Windows

This topic describes the steps needed to setup Visual Studio Code for AVBlocks development on Windows. These steps have been verified to work on on Windows 11 (22H2).

Visual Studio Code

Download and install from Visual Studio Code site.

Open Visual Studio Code and press Ctrl + Shift + P. Select Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH.

Also install the C/C++ Extension Pack.

Create CMake project

Follow the steps in Create a Command Line Tool using CMake to create a CMake project.

Automate the build

Add the following Visual Studio Code specific files to the .vscode subdir:

.vscode/tasks.json

{
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "Build",
            "type": "shell",
            "windows": {
                "command": "${workspaceFolder}/build.ps1"
            },
            "group": "build"
        }
    ]
}

.vscode/launch.json

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Debug (cppvsdbg)",
            "type": "cppdbg",
            "request": "launch",
            "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
            "windows": {
                "type": "cppvsdbg",
                "program": "${workspaceFolder}/build/debug/simple-converter.exe"
            },
            "preLaunchTask": "Build"
        }        
   ]
}

Test the build

Test the build by pressing Ctrl + Shift + B. Visual Studio Code should execute the build.ps1 script automatically.

Test the debugging

Set a breakpoint on the first line of int main(int argc, const char *argv[]) inside src/main.cpp. Press F5 to launch the debugger. It should stop at the breakpoint.