Adding jar to vscode debug extension - visual-studio-code

Question

We are having a runnable jar for the DAP(Debugger Adapater Protocol) of ABL language and we are planning to add a vscode extension for that ABL DAP.
Could you provide us some documentation or give us an idea about how to do it?

Answer 1

There are basically two approaches for making VS Code run your *.jar:
Declarative:
In the package.json of your extension, you can register your executable as part of the debuggers extension point. Here is the doc: https://code.visualstudio.com/api/extension-guides/debugger-extension#anatomy-of-the-package.json-of-a-debugger-extension.
And here is an example from the node.js debugger.
Basically the following attributes are available:
"runtime": "node",
"runtimeArgs": [ "--arguments_passed_to_runtime" ],
"program": "./dist/dap.js",
"args": [ "--arguments_passed_to_program" ],
The resulting command that VS Code will call is this:
node --arguments_passed_to_runtime ./dist/dap.js --arguments_passed_to_program
You do not have to make a distinction between runtime and program. You can use either "runtime" or "program" and leave out the other.
Non-declarative:
Alternatively you can use extension code to "calculate" the command that VS Code should execute when launching your Debug Adapter. See this API: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/4c3769071459718f89bd48fa3b6e806c83cf3336/src/vs/vscode.d.ts#L8797-L8816
Based on this API the following snippet shows how you could create a DebugAdapterDescriptor for your abl debugger:
// this method is called when your extension is activated
// your extension is activated the very first time the command is executed
export function activate(context: ExtensionContext) {
vscode.debug.registerDebugAdapterDescriptorFactory('abl', {
createDebugAdapterDescriptor(session: DebugSession, executable: DebugAdapterExecutable | undefined): ProviderResult<DebugAdapterDescriptor> {
return new vscode.DebugAdapterExecutable(
"/usr/bin/java",
[
join(context.extensionPath, "bin", "abl.jar")
],
{
"cwd": "some current working directory path",
"env": {
"key": "value"
}
}
);
}
});
}