Unable to setup C++ debugging in VSCode; Debug type not recognized

I'm trying to set up VSCode to start learning C++. As part of this, I need to be able to debug the code, so I've installed the C/C++ extension with the .vsix file to allow it to add C++ debugging configurations. However, when I try to set up a configuration, I do not see C++ as an option for environments; only node, gdb, and lldb. Following the instructions here, I do not see any suggestions for C++ in the command palette. As such, I manually setup the tasks, c_cpp_properties, and launch.json files, copying and pasting and modifying the paths as appropriate. However, VSCode labels cppdbg in launch.json as not recognized as a debug type, as well as the fields stopAtEntry, environments, MIMode, and miDebuggerPath as "Property <...> not allowed". If I change it to gdb, it recognizes the debug type, but the property not allowed error remains:

c_cpp_properties.json:

{ "configurations": [ { "name": "Win32", "includePath": ["${workspaceFolder}/**", "${vcpkgRoot}/x86-windows/include"], "defines": ["_DEBUG", "UNICODE", "_UNICODE"], "windowsSdkVersion": "10.0.17763.0", "compilerPath": "C:\\dev\\tools\\mingw64\\bin\\g++.exe", "cStandard": "c11", "cppStandard": "c++17", "intelliSenseMode": "${default}" } ], "version": 4
}

tasks.json:

{ "version": "2.0.0", "tasks": [ { "label": "build hello world", "type": "shell", "command": "g++", "args": ["test.cpp"], "group": { "kind": "build", "isDefault": true } } ] }

launch.json:

{ // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes. // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes. // For more information, visit: "version": "0.2.0", "configurations": [ { "name": "(gdb) Launch", "type": "cppdbg", "request": "launch", "program": "${workspaceFolder}/test.exe", "args": [], "stopAtEntry": true, "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}", "environment": [], "console": true, "MIMode": "gdb", "miDebuggerPath": "C:\\dev\\tools\\mingw64\\bin\\gdb.exe" } ] }

The version of VSCode I'm using is older, 1.19. The HelloWorld/test.cpp file I wrote the code to is extremely simple:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
int main()
{ std::cout << "Type your name" << std::endl; std::string name; std::cin >> name; std::cout << "Hello, " << name << std::endl; return 0;
}

Can anyone tell me what I'm missing in this process, as I've not been able to find anything on google so far.

2 Answers

In my case, I hadn't installed Microsoft C/C++ extension in vscode. I use docker container for development and I needed to install this extension after attaching to my docker container.

I had that same error message, turns out I had two different configurations listed within my launch.json file. I assumed I'd just pick one during the run cycle and things would just work. Turns out I had to remark out the unused launch configuration to get rid of the error message. (gdb) Launch was fine, remark out the entire Linux version lldb