VSCode Intellisense selecting the wrong libraries for PlatformIO code - visual-studio-code

I'm using VSCode with the PlatformIO plugin and PlatformIO bazel integration (https://github.com/mum4k/platformio_rules) to write code for multiple different types of micro controllers (ATTiny84, ATTiny85, Arduino Nano, ESP32-S3). The code builds correctly as the bazel integration to PlatformIO selects the correct libraries, but as there are libraries with the same name made for different types of micro-controllers, IntelliSense will select one kind of at random and will mark a bunch of symbols as not defined or libraries not found (effectively, a lot of red squiggly marks)
As an example, I have some code that configures a timer for ATTiny85, and access registers like TCCR1 and OCR1A, which are correctly defined in Arduino.h for that micro-controller, but are not defined in any of the other 4 versions of the library available
Another example would be Arduino.h not defining Serial when built on ATTiny, but doing it when working with the Arduino Nano
The code I'm working on here is C++
Because of the fact that the whole project includes code for all of those micro-controllers (the project makes use of several different types of micros) I need to put the directories where all of those libraries are in for all of the micros in the include path, which is what I think is causing this problem. I have tried to fully qualify the path for the library that I'm using in my code, but that doesn't work because libraries included inside those libraries are not (and cannot be) fully qualified, so at some point this problem happens again, just one level of indirection down. Also, this code might end up being open source at some point, hence I cannot force my own absolute paths there
I would like either
For VSCode IntelliSense to get information about the right libraries to include through either PlatformIO or Bazel (best solution)
If that doesn't work, I'd like to have the option to change the include path on a per-directory basis. This would add additional directory structure on my project, and I'm still not 100% sure it would work, but would be a start
At this point I feel like my only option is to disable the red squiggly lines completely, but that looks like a sub-optimal solution

Related

Sharing common helper scripts among projects in VSCode

I have a few utility functions, snippets and scratches that I want to be able to use in every project.
Currently I have the following setup for Clojure projects and Intellij IDEA/Cursive:
I have a user profile defined in .lein, where I have source-paths pointing to
when I sync and run REPL for project in IDEA/Cursive, I check that :user profile is selected (it is the default)
Cursive shows both project files and common files (i.e. scratches folder) in project pane
I can edit and eval in REPL real project files and my local helers/scratchpads seamlessly.
Is there a way to achieve this behaviour in VSCode?
Notes:
My clojure setup in Cursive is for illustration purposes only. I would like to find a way to get similar feature in other scripting languages (i.e. python, groovy). So ideally I don't want to use leiningen for that, but rather find a generic way to add common source folder to VS code Explorer pane.
I know that with multi-root workspaces I can achieve what I want, but it must be done manually per project. It would be much better if my folder with common utils was added to every workspace automatically. Something like a default workspace template would solve this, but I couldn't find anything similar. Am I missing something?

Intellisense for Python keywords in Robot Framework not working in VS Code

I did my best to overcome this problem but it was in vain. I am developing tests in Robot Framework (RF) in Visual Studio Code and I want it to either show "signatures" of keywords from standard libraries or to be able to go to their definitions. Go to definition and signature displaying when hovering with Ctrl key are behaving this way:
works for my keywords written in RF (hoorah!)
works for my keywords written in Python only if a keyword consists of one word (I think conversion between undescores and spaces is failing)
does not work for keywords from standard libraries even if the keyword is one-word (e.g. "Fail"), regardless whether the keyword comes from built-in libraries or other ones (e.g. SeleniumLibrary)
When failing, Robot Framework Intellisense Server gives me message "Keyword definition 'Blah Blah' not found from the workspace".
I am using plugins Robot Framework Intellisense FORK and/or Robot Framework Language Server. I tried to configure them carefully according their documentation (Details), but the best state I reached is described above.
Can you help me please? I do not need to use a specific plugin, I just need to have the signature or documentation (or implementation) of every keyword in my code to be one click far.

According to their documentation they support
Goto definition
For variables
For user keywords

I was able to partially solve this when I not only open the folder with source code, but create a workspace and add the folder containing standard libraries to it as well (Add Folder to Workspace). I do not know exactly which folder is the best to add, it seems ...\Python\Python37\Lib\site-packages\ to me.

Why can't I debug into UnityEngine.UI code?

I add the UnityEngine.UI.dll and UnityEditor.UI.dll to my assets folder with their mdb files . also i add the both project to my current project. i am sure all the unity engine ugui code build success, because i debug log in the event system, and it print message. when i want to step into the event system class, i always failed . I find unity will load the code from a build path ,rather than i original code. Why does it do this ? if i want to debug unity engine ugui code, what should i do ?

To debug code, you need two things:
Symbols, the list of all functions, classes, variables used throughout the module. When using C++ symbols are stored in special .pdb files on Windows (and you obviously are using Windows since you are talking about dlls). Symbols in C# (.NET in general) are stored in the .dll itself. Having symbols will let you see the name of functions on the call stack and possibly some variables but nothing more.
Source code of the module.
U3D's source code is proprietary - you need to spend a good amount of money to receive it. And if I am guess to - UnityEngine.UI.dll is a C++ module with stripped (removed) symbols removed.
Thus you have neither, so you can't debug U3D's code at all.
Why would you need to that anyway? If you want to see how the internals of a big game engine work, there are plenty of other options (for example UE4 and Lumberyard). If you are struggling with a problem and you'd like to be able to solve it through debugging...well though luck. Your best bet would be to ask in unity community.

Eclipse auto detect includes and macros for multiple compilers

I'm working on a project that uses Eclipse to build an embedded application for several different platforms. Right now I have it set up to use a different build configuration to determine which compiler is used to build but I'm having trouble getting the index to work properly.
The core of the problem is that I have some files that are platform specific and simply won't compile anywhere else (e.g. setting hardware registers for an ARM won't work on a PowerPC). Building is easy as I'm using a custom makefile so I can just exclude sources from different builds. The Eclipse indexer however doesn't know that so it tries to index both files at the same time which causes problems due to different compilers having different default include directories and macros defined. I've figured out how to change the discovery options discover one compiler or the other but I can't get it to find both at once (unless I manually add each include directory and #define but I'd like to avoid that if possible).
Is there a way to automatically discover the include paths and #defines for two different compilers in the same project? Alternatively, is it possible to tell Eclipse not to try parsing files that aren't used in the build?

I figured out how to do it. Under the C/C++ General > Code Analysis section you can select certain files/folders to be excluded. I turned off errors about unresolved symbols, functions and types and now it works fine.

What to put under version control?

Almost any IDE creates lots of files that have nothing to do with the application being developed, they are generated and mantained by the IDE so he knows how to build the application, where the version control repository is and so on.
Should those files be kept under version control along with the files that really have something to do with the aplication (source code, application's configuration files, ...)?
The things is: on some IDEs if you create a new project and then import it into the version-control repository using the version-control client/commands embedded in the IDE, then all those files are sent to the respitory. And I'm not sure that's right: what is two different developers working on the same project want to use two different IDEs?
I want to keep this question agnostic avoiding references to any particular IDE, programming language or version control system. So this question is not exactly the same as these:
SVN and binaries - but this talks about binaries and SVN
Do you keep your build tools in version control? - but this talks about build tools (e.g. putting the jdk under version control)
What project files shouldn’t be checked into SVN - but this talks about SVN and dll's
Do you keep your project files under version control? - very similar (haven't found it before), thanks VonC

Rules of thumb:
Include everything which has an influence on the build result (compiler options, file encodings, ASCII/binary settings, etc.)
Include everything to make it possible to open the project from a clean checkout and being able to compile/run/test/debug/deploy it without any further manual intervention
Don't include files which contain absolute paths
Avoid including personal preferences (tab size, colors, window positions)
Follow the rules in this order.
[Update] There is always the question what should happen with generated code. As a rule of thumb, I always put those under version control. As always, take this rule with a grain of salt.
My reasons:
Versioning generated code seems like a waste of time. It's generated right? I can get it back at a push of a button!
Really?
If you had to bite the bullet and generate the exact same version of some previous release without fail, how much effort would it be? When generating code, you not only have to get all the input files right, you also have to turn back time for the code generator itself. Can you do that? Always? As easy as it would be to check out a certain version of the generated code if you had put it under version control?
And even if you could, could you ever be sure that didn't miss something?
So on one hand, putting generated code under version control make sense since it makes it dead easy to do what VCS are meant for: Go back in time.
Also it makes it easy to see the differences. Code generators are buggy, too. If I fix a bug and have 150'000 files generated, it helps a lot when I can compare them to the previous version to see that a) the bug is gone and b) nothing else changed unexpectedly. It's the unexpected part which you should worry about. If you don't, let me know and I'll make sure you never work for my company ever :-)
The major pain point of code generators is stability. It doesn't do when your code generator just spits out a random mess of bytes every time you run (well, unless you don't care about quality). Code generators need to be stable and deterministic. You run them twice with the same input and the output must be identical down to least significant bit.
So if you can't check in generated code because every run of the generator creates differences that aren't there, then your code generator has a bug. Fix it. Sort the code when you have to. Use hash maps that preserve order. Do everything necessary to make the output non-random. Just like you do everywhere else in your code.
Generated code that I might not put under version control would be documentation. Documentation is somewhat of a soft target. It doesn't matter as much when I regenerate the wrong version of the docs (say, it has a few typos more or less). But for releases, I might do that anyway so I can see the differences between releases. Might be useful, for example, to make sure the release notes are complete.
I also don't check in JAR files. As I do have full control over the whole build and full confidence that I can get back any version of the sources in a minute plus I know that I have everything necessary to build it without any further manual intervention, why would I need the executables for? Again, it might make sense to put them into a special release repo but then, better keep a copy of the last three years on your company's web server to download. Think: Comparing binaries is hard and doesn't tell you much.

I think it's best to put anything under version control that helps developers to get started quickly, ignoring anything that may be auto-generated by an IDE or build tools (e.g. Maven's eclipse plugin generates .project and .classpath - no need to check these in). Especially avoid files that change often, that contain nothing but user preferences, or that conflict between IDEs (e.g. another IDE that uses .project just like eclipse does).
For eclipse users, I find it especially handy to add code style (.settings/org.eclipse.jdt.core.prefs - auto formatting on save turned on) to get consistently formatted code.

Everything that can be automatically generated from the source+configuration files should not be under the version control! It only causes problems and limitations (like the one you stated - using 2 different project files by different programmers).
Its true not only for IDE "junk files" but also for intermediate files (like .pyc in python, .o in c etc).

This is where build automation and build files come in.
For example, you can still build the project (the two developers will need the same build software obviously) but they then could in turn use two different IDE's.
As for the 'junk' that gets generated, I tend to ignore most if it. I know this is meant to be language agnostic but consider Visual Studio. It generates user files (user settings etc..) this should not be under source control.
On the other hand, project files (used by the build process) most certainly should. I should add that if you are on a team and have all agreed on an IDE, then checking in IDE specific files is fine providing they are global and not user specific and/or not needed.
Those other questions do a good job of explaining what should and shouldn't be checked into source control so I wont repeat them.

In my opinion it depends on the project and environment. In a company environment where everybody is using the same IDE it can make sense to add the IDE files to the repository. While this depends a bit on the IDE, as some include absolute paths to things.
For a project which is developed in different environments it doesn't make sense and will be pain in the long run as the project files aren't maintained by all developers and make it harder to find "relevant" things.

Anything that would be devastating if it were lost, should be under version control.

In my opinion, anything needed to build the project (code, make files, media, databases with required program info, etc) should be in repositories. I realise that especially for media/database files this is contriversial, but to me if you can't branch and then hit build the source control's not doing it's job. This goes double for distributed systems with cheap branch creation/merging.
Anything else? Store it somewhere different. Developers should choose their own working environment as much as possible.

From what I have been looking at with version control, it seems that most things should go into it - e.g. source code and so on. However, the problem that many VCS's run into is when trying to handle large files, typically binaries, and at times things like audio and graphic files. Therefore, my personal way to do it is to put the source code under version control, along with general small sized graphics, and leave any binaries to other systems of management. If it is a binary that I created myself using the build system of the IDE, then that can definitily be ignored, because it is going to be regenerated every build. For dependancy libraries, well this is where dependancy package managers come in.
As for IDE generated files (I am assuming these are ones that aren't generated during the build process, such as the solution files for Visual Studio) - well, I think it would depend on whether or not you are working alone. If you are working alone, then go ahead and add them - they will allow you to revert settings in the solution or whatever you make. Same goes for other non-solution like files as well. However, if you are collaborating, then my recomendation is no - most IDE generated files tend to be, well, user specific - aka they work on your machine, but not neccesarily on others. Hence, you may be better of not including IDE generated files in that case.
tl;dr you should put most things that relate to your program into version control, excluding dependencies (things like libraries, graphics and audio should be handled by some other dependancy management system). As for things directly generated by the IDE - well, it would depend on if you are working alone or with other people.