C in VSCode

[lone helm]

Please help me, I just want to code in C on vscode but I can't manage it. I've watched 20,000 tutorials but still don't understand why it's not working. It also doesn't work on Microsoft Visual Studio. The only IDE that works is CodeBlocks, but I really prefer VSCode.

[rocky mulch]

When your question is answered use !solved to mark the question as resolved.

Remember to ask specific questions, provide necessary details, and reduce your question to its simplest form. For tips on how to ask a good question use !howto ask.

[hearty lion]

You need to provide more details about what the issue is and what you've already tried.

[lone helm]

Sorry for my vocabulary, I'm a beginner. Basically, I've already tried coding on CodeBlocks and it works. But I want to code on VSCode because it looks nicer. Here's what it tells me when I click on run. I'm sorry if I'm explaining poorly, but I really don't understand anything; I don't know anything about C. I'm so lost...

[thorny pilot]

do you have gcc installed

run gcc -v in the terminal and share the output here @lone helm

[lone helm]

ok wait

[thorny pilot]

ok you have gcc lemme see

the code seems good have you installed these extensions?

the C/c++, intelicode and cmake @lone helm

[lone helm]

I have these. But i dont find the intelicode extension

oh sry

[hearty lion]

What does "Show Errors" tell you?

[lone helm]

i found it

it shows me this

[thorny pilot]

why aint it working than

[lone helm]

idk

[hearty lion]

How helpful of VSCode

Could you send your tasks.json?

[thorny pilot]

debugging in this stupid weird

[hearty lion]

Looks fine to me. What about launch.json?

[thorny pilot]

ok go in the terminal cmd or powershell and type main.exe maybe that will work

the integrated terminal

[lone helm]

doesnt work

[thorny pilot]

you have the latest version of vs code right maybe thats the issue

[hearty lion]

Wait the exe doesn't even work?

Try compiling manually: gcc main.c -o main.exe then run that exe

[thorny pilot]

did it work

[lone helm]

no
my main.exe file is empty

i swear i'm lost 😭

i think my pc is broken

[thorny pilot]

ok delete that file and type this command gcc main.c -o main.exe in the integrated terminal

the same command raccoon gave

when thats done type main.exe in the terminal again

if it didnt share the results over here

[thorny pilot]

ye now run that main.exe

in the terminal by typing "main.exe"

[lone helm]

its tells me :
main.exe: The term 'main.exe' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or executable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1

• main.exe

•   + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (main.exe:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

[thorny pilot]

did it not compile than

[hearty lion]

Yeah in your screenshot it doesn't even look like gcc generated anything. How did you install gcc?

[thorny pilot]

isnt there a main.exe file next to main.c?

[lone helm]

no

[lone helm]

idk 😭

[thorny pilot]

it aint compiling than

[thorny pilot]

where did you install gcc from? and give me the link

[hearty lion]

Try gcc -v main.c -o main.exe

[thorny pilot]

you will probably need to reinstall gcc

[lone helm]

ye. I dont remember where did i install it from...

If I have to reinstall gcc, pls help me beacause i dont how to do it

wait i tried something.

it created a main.exe file

[hearty lion]

What did you do?

Looks like you installed it through something called msys2? Only thing I can think of is it wanting you to run gcc through a specific terminal

[lone helm]

Now when i run the code this happens

[lone helm]

i installed this

theres no error but nothing happens

[rain minnow]

Make sure the output isn't just put in the Debug Console

Try manually doing ./main.exe in a terminal to run the executable

[lone helm]

It works !

but does it mean i'll have to type this every time i want to run the code ?

isnt it possible to compile it and run it in one click ?

[thorny pilot]

I don't think so cuz you are using msys also type '!solved' here to end the thread

[rocky mulch]

Thank you and let us know if you have any more questions!

This thread is now set to auto-hide after an hour of inactivity

[rain minnow]

No, you shouldn't ever have to type it manually, as that's what launch.json is supposed to be for

[rain minnow]

Clear this file and you should see it autocomplete to a boilerplate (template) one

If not, let me know

The idea with the launch.json being that it'll allow you to recompile + run the program with a single press of the F5 key

[lone helm]

i deleted the lauch.json file but it still doesnt work

[rain minnow]

I said clear, which just means removing all the text inside of it without actually deleting it

[lone helm]

oh sry

[rain minnow]

So recreate launch.json

No worries

[lone helm]

and when its cleared ?

what do i do next ?

[rain minnow]

So the file is empty right now, right? VS Code didn't fill it out with default stuff?

[rain minnow]

Ok, so remove the file after all. We'll use another approach that does actually fill it out with default stuff

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/debugging#_launch-configurations

[lone helm]

it created this file

[rain minnow]

Try it again and make sure it didn't give you a list of languages to choose from like so on my computer

You might just be missing the C++ extension

If you don't see it, download the official C/C++ extension. The little blocks button you see on the left here is the extensions tab, where you can download extensions.

[lone helm]

when i clicked on the create json file i chose C++(GDB/LLDB)

i have the extension

[rain minnow]

okay yeah nvm the extension is just crap, sorry

I expected it to do at the bare minimum something like launch an executable for you

give me one sec and I'll just send you a boilerplate one

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Launch Program",
      "type": "cppdbg",
      "request": "launch",
      "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
      "program": "${workspaceFolder}/main.exe"
    }
  ]
}

enjoy

[lone helm]

thx

[rain minnow]

You can add arguments to the program with the args JSON key, should you want to send arguments to your program

[lone helm]

when i press F5 it works

[lone helm]

what does that mean ?

[rain minnow]

So if you want F5 to do ./main.exe foo bar, where foo and bar are arguments to your program that you can read from argv in main(), you can put those arguments in the launch.json if you add an "args" key. If you type "args" next to the "program" key in the JSON file it autocompletes it for you.

[lone helm]

ooohhhh ok

[rain minnow]

So right now F5 is launching the main.exe you built, but it isn't recompiling it for you. You need to add the preLaunchTask in order to tell it which tasks.json task you want to run to build the executable.

(I am presuming you have a tasks.json that contains a compilation task)

[rain minnow]

okay yeah you do. I'd change the label name in the tasks.json to something shorter like build

[lone helm]

wait what, if i want to compile it and run it with F5. How can i do that ?

[rain minnow]

Then you add "preLaunchTask": "build" in your launch.json in order to tell VS Code that you want to run the build task before running the program

[lone helm]

like that ?

[rain minnow]

exactly

[lone helm]

ok lemme try

[rain minnow]

now just let its task in the tasks.json have the same label

so it knows what it is referring to

[lone helm]

wait i tried to F5 and its telling me could not find the task build

[rain minnow]

yeah, see this

it is telling you "there is no task called 'build', please rename your task to that"

[rain minnow]

read my messages again and let me know what is confusing

[lone helm]

i'm so sorry, what do i need to do ? 😭 I need to rename my tasks.json to build.json ?

[rain minnow]

look inside your tasks.json

there is a key there called "label" with a very long name as a value

that name needs to match the name you are looking for with your preLaunchTask key in the launch.json

"preLaunchTask" literally means "before launching my program, run this (build) task for me", so you tell it what the name of the build task is. You called it build

[lone helm]

ohhhhhh ok

it works

[rain minnow]

So you just need to make sure the label of your task matches

ayy nice

Can you show your tasks.json, I want to show something neat

Oh nvm you already have -g as an arg

[rain minnow]

Okay, I just wanted to say that you should now be able to go to your main.c, and press just to the left of one of the line numbers in order to place a breakpoint there

So try that out. Put a variable in there, put a breakpoint on the line after it, and check if when you press F5 the debugger pops up. You should see the variable's current value in the debugger menu on the left

[lone helm]

wait, i'm so sorry i'm a beginner... How do i put a variable ? i'm not sure

[rain minnow]

you can make an integer variable for example with int foo = 42;

so put that inside of the main()

[lone helm]

ok and then i put a break point and run it with F5 ?

[rain minnow]

yeah, breakpoint on the next line

[lone helm]

oh the next line

wait

[rain minnow]

yeah, so put the breakpoint on the printf()

[rain minnow]

so see that "watch" tab on the left that is collapsed? expand that by clicking on it

and the "variables" one

weird that they were collapsed

[lone helm]

ohhh i see

there s x:10

[rain minnow]

yup

okay, to show its true power, add the line x = 42; after the one where you initialize it to 10

set a breakpoint on the x = 42; line

Then press either of these buttons at the top of your screen, and you should see the value of x change from 10 to 42 in the debugger's "variables" tab on the left

[lone helm]

why is it showing me an error ?

[rain minnow]

hover over it to get an explanation, idk

you might just need to close and reopen the file to see the error disappear

[lone helm]

ohhhhhh it works

ok

yes it changes from 10 to 42

[rain minnow]

great

so you can't know this yet, but I've been programming for over a decade now (high school, university, etc.), and learning the basics of using any debugger, like this one, is unironically the most useful skill a programmer will ever learn

the reason it's so great is that you can just step through every line of code as the computer is executing it, to see how values are changing, which helps immensely with gaining intuition for what a program is doing, and for figuring out what is causing a bug

so congrats!

[lone helm]

wow, that's aswome

tysm

[rain minnow]

you can explore the other buttons at the top, but in my experience I only ever really use these

the left one means "jump over this function call", while the one on the right means "step into this function call". So if you're currently just on a regular line of code like x = 42;, they act identically, since there is nothing to step into

idk if you've written a function yet, but even if you haven't, you can remember that you can step into it with the button on the right for later

[lone helm]

ooh ok i see

cool

thanks for helping me 👍