AVR Freaks

Visual C++ Team Blog

C/C++ extension for Visual Studio Code

March 31, 2016

by Ankit Asthana

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/vcblog/2016/03/31/cc-extension-for-visual-studio-code/

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Today we are announcing a Preview of a product for your C/C++ editing and debugging needs on Linux and OS/X: the C/C++ extension to Visual Studio Code.

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... this preview version of the C/C++ extension introduces a better language service experience with support for code-navigation and the ability to debug C/C++ applications ...

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Debugging your C/C++ application in Visual Studio Code

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The debugging experience currently only works out-of-the-box for Linux – Ubuntu 14.04 (x64).

We are working on OS X support as well ...

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GDB and MI commands

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"Microsoft is sharing code between Visual Studio and Visual Code. This extension requires .Net because of the debbuger engine ..." - Felipe

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(wrt Clang)

"Our LLDB support in the extension isn’t quite ready for public consumption, but watch the extension for future updates.

It is currently possible to point this extension to very recent builds of lldb-mi (3.8 or 3.9) but that scenario hasn’t been tested and has some known issues." - Jackson Davis

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"It’s not that C/C++ code is not supported on Windows, it’s just that the debugging portion of the extension currently doesn’t support Windows debugging.

The primary reason for that is exactly that the debugger engine uses GDB MI which doesn’t help with debugging standard COFF, PDB all that much." - Ankit Asthana

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"The same tag-parser which parses symbols in your source code and provides the code-navigation features on Visual Studio on Windows has now been ported over to Mac and Linux which we hope provides the fastest code-navigation experience :). " - Ankit Asthana

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http://lldb.llvm.org/ (The LLDB Debugger)

Visual Studio Marketplace

Native Debug

by webfreak

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=webfreak.debug

GDB, LLDB & Mago-MI Debugger support for VSCode

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Using gdbserver for remote debugging (GDB only)

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Federico Zuccardi Merli

9/4/2016

I'm using this for embedded debugging, through OpenOCD and other gdb servers. No major issues, ...

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Visual Studio Marketplace

PlatformIO

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=formulahendry.platformio

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Integrate PlatformIO into Visual Studio Code on top of PlatformIO Core. Cross-platform Build System without external dependencies to the OS software: 350+ embedded boards, 20+ development platforms, 10+ frameworks. Arduino and ARM mbed compatible.

Atmel AVR & SAM, Espressif 8266 & 32, Freescale Kinetis, Intel ARC32, Lattice iCE40, Microchip PIC32, Nordic nRF51, NXP LPC, Silicon Labs EFM32, ST STM32, TI MSP430 & Tiva, Teensy, Arduino, ARM mbed, libOpenCM3, ESP8266, etc.

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via

https://github.com/platformio/platformio-core/issues/619

via

http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/history.html#id1 (3.3.0 2017-03-27)

http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/ide/vscode.html

https://snapcraft.io/vscode

8-May: It's currently about two months behind.

Now current at 1.23 (Apr'18)

Hmm.. Have been digging into VSC the last few days but find it a bit challenging. Seems promising though to have an "all platform" solutions available but I think it is way to complex to set up to debug just a small 8bit AVR board. The .vscode folder and the several files and numerous tags that need to be understood and correctly setup in this folder, not to mention having to understand which extensions which needs to be installed and knowing how to use them, is a bit overwhelming for an mid-aged HW engineer used to do stuff built from command line or trough a simple IDE.  Solvable, yes I think, but i guess the main problem is that VSC is initially aimed towards black box coders (meaning building applications running on an computer of which HW you don't care much for) and not to coders making their own embedded boards etc. Maybe I was a bit naive when I looked into this IDE, but I dare to be so. :)

I really like the GUI though,  seems nice, but I would loved to have a tutorial, which gives every step needed to set up a project for for example atmega328pb.json based board from scratch. served on a silver spoon, describing all the tags, wigs and wags and their meaning  . :)    And also, why limit at IDE to specific development boards? I build all my boards from scratch and debugging on anything else than the end target board is out of the scope.

What would one foe example need to change in the atmega328pb.json file to debug over jlink and using GDB (if thats the best option).

I guess this file would replace the concept of the makefile but I cant see any reference of the compiler used (is it part of platformIO ?) or the debugger . 

{
  "build": {
    "core": "arduino",
    "extra_flags": "-DARDUINO_AVR_UNO",
    "f_cpu": "16000000L",
    "mcu": "atmega328pb",
    "variant": "atmega328pb"
  },
  "frameworks": [
    "arduino"
  ],
  "name": "Atmel ATmega328PB",
  "upload": {
    "maximum_ram_size": 2048,
    "maximum_size": 32256,
    "protocol": "arduino",
    "require_upload_port": true,
    "speed": 57600
  },
  "url": "http://www.atmel.com/devices/ATMEGA328PB.aspx",
  "vendor": "Arduino"
}

Sorry if the questions is too nooby, but I have no clue for where I am to start to Terra-forme VSC so that it becomes habitable for mid- aged HW engineers

https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-arduino/blob/master/README.md#prerequisites

http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/ide/vscode.html

and the AVR debugging is a possible future enhancement :

https://www.avrfreaks.net/forum/platformio-do-or-do-not-thats-question#comment-2489536

mega328PB is in PlatformIO :

http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/platforms/atmelavr.html#boards

http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/platforms/atmelavr.html#arduino

http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/platforms/atmelavr.html#elektor

Not GDB for AVR as EDBG is already in the Microsoft Arduino extension.

Now AVR GDB via dwire-debug (debugWIRE) as that has an AVR GDB server.

GitHub - DeqingSun/Debugging-Arduino-Uno

https://github.com/DeqingSun/Debugging-Arduino-Uno#overview

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So I used an Attiny85 both as ISP programmer and debugger.

 

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https://github.com/DeqingSun/Debugging-Arduino-Uno#step-6-add-support-for-debugwire

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Refering to this commit, add support of USBtinySPI and Uno into debuggerUsbMapping.json and usbmapping.json

 

 

[step 7 is blinky, step 8 is stop the GDB server and restore ISP]

Arduino - Visual Studio Marketplace

GitHub - dcwbrown/dwire-debug: Simple stand-alone debugger for AVR DebugWIRE chips connected directly to an FT232R/CH340/DigiSpark/LittleWire on Linux or Windows.

https://www.avrfreaks.net/forum/debugwire-usb-uart?page=1#comment-2584101

Digispark USB Development Board - Digistump (tiny85)

Edit: typo

Edit1: merged : https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-arduino/pull/685

Arduino Programming with VSCode

Issues running AVR-G++ under Cygwin with include paths | AVR Freaks

I do like VSCode Remote. I have been using it over SSH from a Windows 10 desktop. I connect to a remote Linux host that has a serial port connected (generally to a multi-drop) link with AVR(s). I also find that IntelliSense does a fantastic job with C on the host system, and also Python. It is a general-purpose remote host and microcontroller source editor (with marvelous features), if I were a cat, I would be purring.

I found it easy enough to set up, and things I looked for were discoverable (or obvious), but your mileage may vary. Also, I have worked remote over SSH for many years, so that was the simple path for me.

Microsoft: We want to bring VS Code to Apple's Mac-on-Arm silicon | ZDNet

by Liam Tung | July 16, 2020 -- 10:51 GMT (03:51 PDT) | Topic: Developer

Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform code editor and so it will be available for Apple silicon.

[second paragraph]

Ahead of the consumer release of Arm-based Macs later this year, Apple has released a developer kit [DTK] in a Mac mini enclosure with a A12X processor, 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

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[end of third paragraph]

... Apple is planning on shipping new Macs with a more powerful A14 chip, which is two generations newer than the A12X. 

 

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There are also requests to bring official VS Code support to the Raspberry Pi 4 and Debian-based Raspberry Pi OS. 

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[some extensions are portable; otherwise, will add Arm]

Universal App Quick Start Program - Apple Developer

[1/3 page, right column]

Developer Transition Kit (DTK)

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