Variables in VS Code settings, how? - visual-studio-code

Question

In VS Code settings, there are some fields which I configure the same. These would be namely font and font size. Generally I have them all set to the same. I am trying to set up a variable in the settings.json which can be applied to all of them. After reading through Variables Reference for VS Code, I came up with the following:
{
"common": [
{
"font": "Anonymous Pro",
"fontSize": 10,
}
],
// Set up the Editor
"editor.fontFamily": "${common:font}",
"editor.fontSize": "${common:fontSize}",
"terminal.integrated.fontFamily": "${common:font}",
"terminal.integrated.fontSize": "${common:fontSize}",
"debug.console.fontFamily": "${common:font}",
"debug.console.fontSize": "${common:fontSize}",
}
Though, this doesn't seem to work. Is there a way to setup variables within the settings.json without having to setup environment variables?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Currently you cannot set variables in the settings.json file.
The current open issue for VS Code to implement this feature is here: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/2809
It has yet to have a PR and the opening of the issue occurred Feb 2016, but with comments within the last 2 months.

Answer 2

For anyone coming to this question in 2023, VS Code has updated a way to provide this using the c_cpp_properties.json configuration.
Here is an example of variable definition:
{
"configurations": [
{
"customConfigurationVariables": {
"appInstallPath": "/my/app/bin/",
"debugRemoteHost": "192.168.1.1",
"debugRemotePort": "2159"
}
}
],
"version": 4
}
And then you would reference these variables in either launch.json or tasks.json using
${input:variable-id}
where the variable-id is defined in the input section as shown below. The "args" key must match your variable defined in customConfigurationVariables:
{
"version": "0.2.0",
"inputs": [
{
"id": "installPath",
"type": "command",
"command": "cpptools.activeConfigCustomVariable",
"args": "appInstallPath"
},
{
"id": "host",
"type": "command",
"command": "cpptools.activeConfigCustomVariable",
"args": "debugRemoteHost"
},
{
"id": "port",
"type": "command",
"command": "cpptools.activeConfigCustomVariable",
"args": "debugRemotePort"
}
],
"configurations": [
{
// Enables single-click remote debugging on this device from the project install location
"name": "Local Debug",
"type": "cppdbg",
"request": "launch",
"program": "${command:cmake.launchTargetPath}",
"cwd": "${input:installPath}",
"environment": [],
"MIMode": "gdb",
"setupCommands": [
{
"description": "Enable pretty-printing for gdb",
"text": "-enable-pretty-printing",
"ignoreFailures": true
},
{
"description": "Set Disassembly Flavor to Intel",
"text": "-gdb-set disassembly-flavor intel",
"ignoreFailures": true
}
],
"stopAtEntry": true,
"externalConsole": false,
"logging": {
"engineLogging": false,
"trace": false,
"traceResponse": false
}
}
]
}

Answer 3

This is not possible. The link you provided states:
Variable substitution is supported inside key and value strings in launch.json and tasks.json ...
So there is no support for settings.json.

Answer 4

What are you trying to achieve? You can set project specific settings in VSCode. So much you can have a different set of fonts and settings based on the project. But I don't think the settings.json supports variables.

Answer 5

VScode: Defining own variables in tasks.json
Check out this Might help I have developed a python script that reads any *.json file and replace content with $[] with its actual value