Getting Started with C++ Development on Visual Studio Code on Linux

As a developer who loves C++ and competitive programming, I was thrilled to discover that Visual Studio Code (VS Code) is a fantastic tool for coding C++ projects. In this guide, we'll explore how to set up VS Code on a Linux system to run, debug, and get IntelliSense support for C/C++ files.

Prerequisites

To follow along with this guide, you'll need to have Visual Studio Code installed on your Linux system. If you haven't done so already, download and install it from the official website.

Enabling C++ Language Support

Once VS Code is installed, we can enable C++ language support using the 'C/C++' extension. This will provide syntax highlighting, code completion, and other features to help us write better C++ code.

Configuring CMake Projects

To configure and build our CMake projects in VS Code, we'll need the 'CMake Tools' extension from Microsoft. This extension allows us to set up our CMake projects and run them using the command line.

Opening Workspaces from WSL

If you're working on a project that requires access to files on your Linux system, you can use the 'Remote WSL' extension to open workspaces from your Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) installation. This allows you to work seamlessly with both your Linux and Windows environments.

Debugging C/C++ CMake Projects

To debug our C/C++ projects, we'll need to set up a launch configuration file called `launch.json`. This file tells VS Code how to run our program and what command line arguments to use. Here's an example of what the final contents of this file might look like:

```json

{

'version': '0.2.0',

'configurations': '

{

'name': (1) '(gdb) Launch',

'type': 'cppdbg',

'request': 'launch',

'program': '${workspaceFolder}/path/to/your/executable',

'args': '',

'stopAtEntry': false,

'cwd': '${workspaceFolder}',

'environment': ''PATH=${workspaceFolder}/bin'',

'externalConsole': true

}

```

Setting Up a Sample C/C++ Project

To get started with debugging, let's create a sample C/C++ project. Create a new directory for your project and add a `main.cpp` file inside it:

```c++

#include

using namespace std;

int main() {

cout << 'Hello, World!' << endl;

return 0;

}

```

In this guide, we've covered the basic steps to set up VS Code for C++ development on Linux. By installing the necessary extensions and configuring our launch configuration file, we can run, debug, and get IntelliSense support for our C/C++ projects. Whether you're a competitive programmer or just starting out with C++, VS Code is an excellent choice for coding and debugging your projects.

C++ visual studio code linux