How can Visual Studio Code be used to debug applications tested with Google Test?

Question

I would like to run a command for my C++ project such as ./unittests_feature1 --gtest_filter=Feature1.test_int

using Visual Studio Code Debugger.

When setting up a debugger session in Visual Studio, my configuration looks like this:

{
   "name": "Test_int",
   "type": "cppdbg",

    "request": "launch",
    "program": "${workspaceFolder}/unittests_feature1",
    "args": ["--gtest_filter=Feature1.test_int"],
    "stopAtEntry": false,
    "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
    "environment": [],
    "externalConsole": true,
    "MIMode": "gdb",
    "setupCommands": [
      {
        "description": "Enable pretty-printing for gdb",
        "text": "-enable-pretty-printing",
        "ignoreFailures": true
      }
    ]
}

But when I start the Debugger, it runs everything for unittests_feature1, and not only Feature1.test_int.

If I run manually in command line:

gdb --args ./unittests_feature1 --gtest_filter=Feature1.test_int

It works, so some Visual Studio Code configurations might be the problem.

Answer 1

I got a similar problem today and I'de like to post some experience here to help.

I am using WSL2/Ubuntu & VSCode Remote-WSL to debug a C++ program with GTest code. The default terminal in WSL2/Ubuntu is zsh. I want to pass the argument "--gtest_filter=OneD* to the test executable.

For me, the successful config for the args field of the launch.json is:

            "args": [
                "--gtest_filter=OneD\\*"
            ],

Examples of problematic configs include:

• [--gtest_filter=\"OneD\\*\"]
• [--gtest_filter=\"OneD*\"]
• [--gtest_filter=OneD*]

It seems zsh contributed a little to the problem since * is parsed by zsh firstly before gdb & my executable.