In this tutorial, you configure Visual Studio Code on macOS to use the Clang/LLVM compiler and debugger.

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After configuring VS Code, you will compile and debug a simple C++ program in VS Code. This tutorial does not teach you about Clang or the C++ language. For those subjects, there are many good resources available on the Web.

If you have any trouble, feel free to file an issue for this tutorial in the VS Code documentation repository.

Prerequisites

Visual Studio Code (1.22.0+) 1. Install Visual Studio Code for Windows (7, 8.1, or 10), macOS (High Sierra 10.13+), 64-bit Linux 2. Download and install the Visual Studio Live Share extension from the marketplace. Reload and wait for dependencies to download and install (see status bar).

Python support is not presently available in Visual Studio for Mac, but is available on Mac and Linux through Visual Studio Code. See questions and answers. Visual Studio 2019 and Visual Studio 2017. Download and run the latest Visual Studio installer. As part of the Microsoft cross-platform assault, a new editor called Visual Studio code has been released with support for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Macos 10.14 macos 10.15 macos 10.13 xamarin editor debugger project solution xaml fixed in: visual studio 2019 for mac version 8.0 android crash performance ios visual studio ide fixed in: visual studio 2019 for mac version 8.1 Setup fixed in: visual studio 2019 for mac version 8.3 fixed in: visual studio 2019 for mac version 8.2 fixed in. When using a remote connection, Visual Studio builds C Linux projects on the remote machine. It doesn't matter if it's a physical machine, a VM in the cloud, or WSL. To build the project, Visual Studio copies the source code to your remote Linux computer. Then, the code gets compiled based on Visual Studio.

To successfully complete this tutorial, you must do the following:

1. Install Visual Studio Code on macOS.

2. Install the C++ extension for VS Code. You can install the C/C++ extension by searching for 'c++' in the Extensions view (⇧⌘X (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+X)).

Ensure Clang is installed

Clang may already be installed on your Mac. To verify that it is, open a macOS Terminal window and enter the following command:

1. If Clang isn't installed, enter the following command to install the command line developer tools:

Create Hello World

From the macOS Terminal, create an empty folder called projects where you can store all your VS Code projects, then create a subfolder called helloworld, navigate into it, and open VS Code in that folder by entering the following commands:

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The code . command opens VS Code in the current working folder, which becomes your 'workspace'. As you go through the tutorial, you will create three files in a .vscode folder in the workspace:

• tasks.json (compiler build settings)
• launch.json (debugger settings)
• c_cpp_properties.json (compiler path and IntelliSense settings)

Add hello world source code file

In the File Explorer title bar, select New File and name the file helloworld.cpp.

Paste in the following source code:

Now press ⌘S (Windows, Linux Ctrl+S) to save the file. Notice that your files are listed in the File Explorer view (⇧⌘E (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+E)) in the side bar of VS Code:

You can also enable Auto Save to automatically save your file changes, by checking Auto Save in the main File menu.

The Activity Bar on the edge of Visual Studio Code lets you open different views such as Search, Source Control, and Run. You'll look at the Run view later in this tutorial. You can find out more about the other views in the VS Code User Interface documentation.

Note: When you save or open a C++ file, you may see a notification from the C/C++ extension about the availability of an Insiders version, which lets you test new features and fixes. You can ignore this notification by selecting the X (Clear Notification).

Explore IntelliSense

In the helloworld.cpp file, hover over vector or string to see type information. After the declaration of the msg variable, start typing msg. as you would when calling a member function. You should immediately see a completion list that shows all the member functions, and a window that shows the type information for the msg object:

You can press the Tab key to insert the selected member. Then, when you add the opening parenthesis, you'll see information about arguments that the function requires.

Build helloworld.cpp

Next, you'll create a tasks.json file to tell VS Code how to build (compile) the program. This task will invoke the Clang C++ compiler to create an executable file from the source code.

It's important to have helloworld.cpp open in the editor because the next step uses the active file in the editor as context to create the build task in the next step.

From the main menu, choose Terminal > Configure Default Build Task. A dropdown will appear listing various predefined build tasks for the compilers that VS Code found on your machine. Choose C/C++ clang++ build active file to build the file that is currently displayed (active) in the editor.

This will create a tasks.json file in the .vscode folder and open it in the editor.

Replace the contents of that file with the following:

The JSON above differs from the default template JSON in the following ways:

• 'args' is updated to compile with C++17 because our helloworld.cpp uses C++17 language features.
• Changes the current working directory directive ('cwd') to the folder where helloworld.cpp is.

The command setting specifies the program to run. In this case, 'clang++' is the driver that causes the Clang compiler to expect C++ code and link against the C++ standard library.

The args array specifies the command-line arguments that will be passed to clang++. These arguments must be specified in the order expected by the compiler.

This task tells the C++ compiler to compile the active file (${file}), and create an output file (-o switch) in the current directory (${fileDirname}) with the same name as the active file (${fileBasenameNoExtension}), resulting in helloworld for our example.

The label value is what you will see in the tasks list. Name this whatever you like.

The problemMatcher value selects the output parser to use for finding errors and warnings in the compiler output. For clang++, you'll get the best results if you use the $gcc problem matcher.

The 'isDefault': true value in the group object specifies that this task will be run when you press ⇧⌘B (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+B). This property is for convenience only; if you set it to false, you can still build from the Terminal menu with Terminal > Run Build Task.

Note: You can learn more about task.json variables in the variables reference.

Running the build

1. Go back to helloworld.cpp. Because we want to build helloworld.cpp it is important that this file be the one that is active in the editor for the next step.

2. To run the build task that you defined in tasks.json, press ⇧⌘B (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+B) or from the Terminal main menu choose Run Build Task.

3. When the task starts, you should see the Integrated Terminal window appear below the code editor. After the task completes, the terminal shows output from the compiler that indicates whether the build succeeded or failed. For a successful Clang build, the output looks something like this:

4. Create a new terminal using the + button and you'll have a new terminal with the helloworld folder as the working directory. Run ls and you should now see the executable helloworld along with the debugging file (helloworld.dSYM).

5. You can run helloworld in the terminal by typing ./helloworld.

Modifying tasks.json

You can modify your tasks.json to build multiple C++ files by using an argument like '${workspaceFolder}/*.cpp' instead of ${file}. This will build all .cpp files in your current folder. You can also modify the output filename by replacing '${fileDirname}/${fileBasenameNoExtension}' with a hard-coded filename (for example '${workspaceFolder}/myProgram.out').

Debug helloworld.cpp

Next, you'll create a launch.json file to configure VS Code to launch the LLDB debugger when you press F5 to debug the program.

From the main menu, choose Run > Add Configuration... and then choose C++ (GDB/LLDB).

You'll then see a dropdown for predefined debugging configurations. Choose clang++ build and debug active file.

VS Code creates a launch.json file, opens it in the editor, and builds and runs 'helloworld'. Your launch.json file will look something like this:

The program setting specifies the program you want to debug. Here it is set to the active file folder ${fileDirname} and active filename ${fileBasenameNoExtension}, which if helloworld.cpp is the active file will be helloworld.

By default, the C++ extension won't add any breakpoints to your source code and the stopAtEntry value is set to false.

Change the stopAtEntry value to true to cause the debugger to stop on the main method when you start debugging.

Ensure that the preLaunchTask value matches the label of the build task in the task.json file.

Start a debugging session

1. Go back to helloworld.cpp so that it is the active file in the editor. This is important because VS Code uses the active file to determine what you want to debug.
2. Press F5 or from the main menu choose Run > Start Debugging. Before you start stepping through the source code, let's take a moment to notice several changes in the user interface:

• The Integrated Terminal appears at the bottom of the source code editor. In the Debug Output tab, you see output that indicates the debugger is up and running.

• The editor highlights the first statement in the main method. This is a breakpoint that the C++ extension automatically sets for you:

• The Run view on the left shows debugging information. You'll see an example later in the tutorial.

• At the top of the code editor, a debugging control panel appears. You can move this around the screen by grabbing the dots on the left side.

Step through the code

Now you're ready to start stepping through the code.

1. Click or press the Step over icon in the debugging control panel so that the for (const string& word : msg) statement is highlighted.

   The Step Over command skips over all the internal function calls within the vector and string classes that are invoked when the msg variable is created and initialized. Notice the change in the Variables window. The contents of msg are visible because that statement has completed.

2. Press Step over again to advance to the next statement (skipping over all the internal code that is executed to initialize the loop). Now, the Variables window shows information about the loop variable.

3. Press Step over again to execute the cout statement. Note As of the March 2019 version of the extension, no output will appear in the DEBUG CONSOLE until the last cout completes.

Set a watch

You might want to keep track of the value of a variable as your program executes. You can do this by setting a watch on the variable.

1. Place the insertion point inside the loop. In the Watch window, click the plus sign and in the text box, type word, which is the name of the loop variable. Now view the Watch window as you step through the loop.

2. To quickly view the value of any variable while execution is paused, you can hover over it with the mouse pointer.

C/C++ configuration

For more control over the C/C++ extension, create a c_cpp_properties.json file, which allows you to change settings such as the path to the compiler, include paths, which C++ standard to compile against (such as C++17), and more.

View the C/C++ configuration UI by running the command C/C++: Edit Configurations (UI) from the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)).

This opens the C/C++ Configurations page.

Visual Studio Code places these settings in .vscode/c_cpp_properties.json. If you open that file directly, it should look something like this:

You only need to modify the Include path setting if your program includes header files that are not in your workspace or the standard library path.

Compiler path

compilerPath is an important configuration setting. The extension uses it to infer the path to the C++ standard library header files. When the extension knows where to find those files, it can provide useful features like smart completions and Go to Definition navigation.

The C/C++ extension attempts to populate compilerPath with the default compiler location based on what it finds on your system. The compilerPath search order is:

• Your PATH for the names of known compilers. The order the compilers appear in the list depends on your PATH.
• Then hard-coded XCode paths are searched, such as /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/

Mac framework path

On the C/C++ Configuration screen, scroll down and expand Advanced Settings and ensure that Mac framework path points to the system header files. For example: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks

Reusing your C++ configuration

VS Code is now configured to use Clang on macOS. The configuration applies to the current workspace. To reuse the configuration, just copy the JSON files to a .vscode folder in a new project folder (workspace) and change the names of the source file(s) and executable as needed.

Troubleshooting

Compiler and linking errors

The most common cause of errors (such as undefined _main, or attempting to link with file built for unknown-unsupported file format, and so on) occurs when helloworld.cpp is not the active file when you start a build or start debugging. This is because the compiler is trying to compile something that isn't source code, like your launch.json, tasks.json, or c_cpp_properties.json file.

Next steps

• Explore the VS Code User Guide.
• Review the Overview of the C++ extension
• Create a new workspace, copy your .json files to it, adjust the necessary settings for the new workspace path, program name, and so on, and start coding!

Installation

1. Download Visual Studio Code for macOS.
2. Open the browser's download list and locate the downloaded archive.
3. Select the 'magnifying glass' icon to open the archive in Finder.
4. Drag Visual Studio Code.app to the Applications folder, making it available in the macOS Launchpad.
5. Add VS Code to your Dock by right-clicking on the icon to bring up the context menu and choosing Options, Keep in Dock.

Launching from the command line

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You can also run VS Code from the terminal by typing 'code' after adding it to the path:

• Launch VS Code.
• Open the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)) and type 'shell command' to find the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.

• Restart the terminal for the new $PATH value to take effect. You'll be able to type 'code .' in any folder to start editing files in that folder.

Note: If you still have the old code alias in your .bash_profile (or equivalent) from an early VS Code version, remove it and replace it by executing the Shell Command: Install 'code' command in PATH command.

To manually add VS Code to your path, you can run the following commands:

Start a new terminal to pick up your .bash_profile changes.

Note: The leading slash is required to prevent $PATH from expanding during the concatenation. Remove the leading slash if you want to run the export command directly in a terminal.

Note: Since zsh became the default shell in macOS Catalina, run the following commands to add VS Code to your path:

Touch Bar support

Out of the box VS Code adds actions to navigate in editor history as well as the full Debug tool bar to control the debugger on your Touch Bar:

Mojave privacy protections

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After upgrading to macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave and is not specific to VS Code. The same dialogs may be displayed when running other applications as well. The dialog is shown once for each type of personal data and it is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders. You can read a more detailed explanation in this blog post.

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Updates

VS Code ships monthly releases and supports auto-update when a new release is available. If you're prompted by VS Code, accept the newest update and it will get installed (you won't need to do anything else to get the latest bits).

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Note: You can disable auto-update if you prefer to update VS Code on your own schedule.

Preferences menu

You can configure VS Code through settings, color themes, and custom keybindings and you will often see mention of the File > Preferences menu group. On a macOS, the Preferences menu group is under Code, not File.

Next steps

Once you have installed VS Code, these topics will help you learn more about VS Code:

• Additional Components - Learn how to install Git, Node.js, TypeScript, and tools like Yeoman.
• User Interface - A quick orientation around VS Code.
• User/Workspace Settings - Learn how to configure VS Code to your preferences settings.

Common questions

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Why do I see 'Visual Studio Code would like access to your calendar.'

If you are running macOS Mojave version, you may see dialogs saying 'Visual Studio Code would like to access your {calendar/contacts/photos}.' This is due to the new privacy protections in Mojave discussed above. It is fine to choose Don't Allow since VS Code does not need access to those folders.

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VS Code fails to update

If VS Code doesn't update once it restarts, it might be set under quarantine by macOS. Follow the steps in this issue for resolution.