Caution

A friendly reminder: The following tutorial is for Linux user instead of Windows

Tutorial

If you want to debug your c++ code with GDB

You can read this ( Debugging your code ) article from Visual Studio Code official website.

Step 1: Compilation

You need to set up task.json for compilation of your cpp file

or simply type in the following command in the command window

g++ -g file.cpp -o file.exe

to generate a debuggable .exe file

Step 2: Set up the launch.json file

To enable debugging, you will need to generate a launch.json file

follow the launch.json example or google others

Step 3: Press (Ctrl+F5) to start compiling

this launch.json file will launch the configuration when you press the shortcut (Ctrl+F5)

Enjoy it!

ps. For those who want to set up tasks.json, you can read this from vscode official (-> TypeScript Hello World)

Visual Studio Code is a cross-platform IDE that uses a tasks.json file to describe how to compile (and perform other tasks) your project. You can run the VSCode in the Windows or in the WSL Ubuntu subsystem. If you wanna run it into the WSL, you must use the Ubuntu/Linux binaries.

Notes on WSL

In the Windows command line, you can run linux commands using bash

C:\> bash.exe -c <linux command>

For instance, you can run the Linux gcc using

C:\> bash -c "gcc -v"

If you have installed multiple linux systems on WSL, e.g. an opensuse and a ubuntu, you must use opensuse-42 run or ubuntu run instead of bash to determine which linux subsystem use at the windows command line.

C:\> ipconfig | opensuse-42 run grep IP | ubuntu run lolcat

In addition, note that the Windows file system can be accessed using /mnt/<drive letter>/. For instance, if you have a C:\Projects folder, you can access it from Linux at /mnt/C/Projects

Configuring a VSCode in Windows to use the GCC in the WSL Linux

Check the instructions in the website. To use GCC or CLang compilers in Mac or Linux, you may use the bash with different arguments depending on the task.

You can configure (or create) your own task.json. You must define the bash as the command to use. I think almost the same configuration you use for Mac/Linux must work. I changed the "cwd" option.

{
    // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
    // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
    "version": "0.1.0",
    "wsl": {
        "command": "bash",
        "args": ["-c"],
        "isShellCommand": true,
        "showOutput": "always",
        "suppressTaskName": true,
        "options": {
            "cwd": "/mnt/C/${workspaceRoot}"
         },
        "tasks": [
             {
                "taskName": "hello",
                "args": [
                    "make hello"
                ],
                "isBuildCommand": true
             },
             {
                "taskName": "clean",
                "args": [
                    "make clean"
                ]
             },
             {
                "taskName": "compile w/o makefile",
                "args": [
                    "g++ helloworld.C -o hello"
                ],
                "echoCommand": true
            }
        ]
    }
}

There are some other Gists you can use as other examples.

NOTE: I have found some MS tutorials on compiling and debugging Linux GCC programs using WSL and Visual Studio but not Visual Studio Code.

After a couple of hours I found out how one can change the compiler in the Visual Studio. However, it is not quite what you need. Anyway it is better than nothing.

1. Open the Visual Studio Installer, click on the "Modify" button un make sure that you have the following components installed: Desktop development with C++, Linux development with C++.
2. Open the Visual Studio, click on the "Create a new project" and choose for the language "C++", for the platform "Linux". Then you will see all available projects:
3. I choose the "Console Application" project for Linux. Than, click on the "ConsoleApplication1" in the project explorer with the right mouse button, than on "Properties" and you will see this window:

I think, it is exactly what was written here. But for this solution you need a Linux machine that you can connect to and then compile on (Visual Studio explains exactly how this works when you create a project).

As an alternative, I could explain how to compile C and C ++ files under Windows in VS Code, but that's certainly another question.

Hey,,, It will work for you I believe

Blockquote

1. First: open the link: https://www.msys2.org/
2. Go to the installation and download the installer .. install the exe file.
3. search mingw in windows search(windows start)
4. there is an app named--> MSYS2 MinGW {64/32}-bit
5. run it as administrator
6. Found command shell ---> type: pacman -Syu
7. Will ask you for some installation click on Y
8. Then again go to the same app MSYS2 MinGW {64/32}-bit and run as admin
9. and write--> pacman -Ss gcc (in shell that opend after click)
10. after clicking there will be bunch of things and now you have to care about your windows arch.. if it is 64 bit then write---> pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc (and if its 32 you will find something like that where 64 will replaced by 32 in bunch of commands that are showing in your shell)
11. after executing this command gcc will be installed in your system to check write: gcc --version || g++ --version
12. After that to install the debugger write pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gdb
13. to check write: gdb --version

**Every thing got installed in your system now find the mingW file or mysys2 file on C drive(whereever you r mingW file got saved) go the the minGW 64 || 32 accroding to your operating system there is a bin folder click on that and copy the path inside the bin folder and save it in environment variables path **

Blockquote

Enjoy vs code