znorman-harris
commented
4 years ago Hello! I'll take a look at getting the command palette/having the ability to use a keyboard shortcut for compiling files instead of having the click the button. I'll try to take a look at adding this in the next week or two.
Debugging is a fun one and here is why:
- The IDL Workbench uses the Java-IDL bridge to issue commands behind the scenes for things like breakpoints.
- VSCode has a concept of debugging that has a "man-in-the-middle" application used for debugging which is something that IDL doesn't have.
- When I first looked at some of this, I was going to capture text from the terminal, parse, and get stack information for debugging. However, at the time and I haven;t checked in a while, this didn't always work. Meaning that I couldn't get line numbers, go to files like the workbench, and make it as interactive as I would have hoped to.
I have thought about some different ways to go about this in VSCode, but wasn't sure how nice the user experience would be and maybe you could provide some feedback. I was thinking about doing this:
- Use VS Code native debugging for adding breakpoints
- Issue the IDL command which would appear in the IDL Console for adding + removing breakpoints (https://www.harrisgeospatial.com/docs/BREAKPOINT.html)
- When you execute your program it will stop on the line
- Stretch goal to jump to that line in the editor, but this might be tricky.
- You would then have to use IDL commands to explore variables and call stack information
astrowq
Hi, I have enjoyed using this extension for several months. Could I suggest two features which I think would further improve the usability of this great tool?
Maybe a related question about debugging in IDL, I can only access the variables inside the called procedure/function but no variables outside it or in the main program. Can I ask if there is a way to resolve this?