Using with MS Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code is free (as in “free beer”, and they claim the code is Open Source) code editor for Windows, Linux and Mac. While not as sophisticated in C/C++ support as full featured Visual Studio, it already has some official support with C/C++ extension from Microsoft. GNU Global replaces venerable ctags tool and help collecting symbols for Intellisense engine.

For easier integration make sure you have both ESP_HOME and SMING_HOME exported in your working environment. ${workspaceRoot} below is the directory with your project, this notation is used also in VS Code config files. All environment variables are available in configuration using this notation, eg. ${HOME} etc.

Software involved

• Visual Studio Code
• C/C++ extension
• RunOnSave extension
• C++ Intellisense extension
• GNU Global

Fire and forget way

• install VS Code, extensions and tools
• download sming-qstart.py from https://github.com/zgoda/sming-qstart/blob/master/sming-qstart.py
• run it from terminal, eg. python sming-qstart.py myproject, see the program documentation for detailed invocation options

Easy way

• install VS Code, extensions and tools
• clone project skeleton using https://github.com/zgoda/sming-skel.git as source
• remove unwanted bits (at least .git directory)
• update paths configuration in ${workspaceRoot}/.vscode/c_cpp_properties.json - should already work out of the box with Linux providing you have ESP_HOME and SMING_HOME properly exported

Step by step

• install VS Code, extensions and tools
• update paths configuration in ${workspaceRoot}/.vscode/c_cpp_properties.json so the list includes toolchain include path (${ESP_HOME}/xtensa-lx106-elf/xtensa-lx106-elf/include), Sming framework include paths (${SMING_HOME} and ${SMING_HOME}/system/include) and possibly your project additional paths (eg. ${workspaceRoot}/lib), if you screw your configuration just close VS Code, delete this file and start from scratch
• make sure path list in browse section contains the same entries as includePath list in root section
• define RunOnSave task in your ${workspaceRoot}/.vscode/settings.json (create file if does not exist) to regenerate GNU Global database on every save, eg:

{
  "emeraldwalk.runonsave": {
    "commands": [
      {
        "match": "\\.(c|cpp|h|hpp)$",
        "isAsync": true,
        "cmd": "gtags ${workspaceRoot}"
      }
    ]
  }
}

• create file ${workspaceRoot}/.vscode/tasks.json and define tasks you want to run from command palette, eg minimal set:

{
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "command": "make",
  "isShellCommand": true,
  "showOutput": "always",
  "echoCommand": true,
  "suppressTaskName": true,
  "tasks": [
    {
      "taskName": "Build",
      "isBuildCommand": true
    },
    {
      "taskName": "Clean",
      "args": [
        "clean"
      ]
    },
    {
      "taskName": "Flash",
      "args": [
        "flash"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

• add tools and binary artifacts to .gitignore, eg:

out

# development tools
.vscode
GTAGS
GRTAGS
GPATH