cpp-debug

This extension contributes a set of widgets for viewing memory in different ways.

Requirements

This extension must be used in conjunction with a Debug Adapter that implements a ReadMemoryRequest handler or alternative custom request that returns memory data. It has been tested against the CDT-GDB Adapter used as the backend for the CDT-GDB VSCode plugin. This repository is configured to download that plugin as part of its build routine. If you intend to use this extension with a different debug adapter, you may need to implement a custom MemoryProvider to handle any peculiarities of the requests and responses used by your adapter.

The Widgets

Memory Widget

The basic MemoryWidget class is a wrapper around two functional widgets, a MemoryOptionsWidget and aMemoryTableWidget. The MemoryOptionsWidget is responsible for configuring the display and fetching memory, and the MemoryTableWidget renders the memory according to the options specified by the user in the MemoryOptionsWidget. The basic combination of these three classes offers variable highlighting, ascii display, and dynamic updating in response to events from the debug session, as well as the option to lock the view to ignore changes from the session.

Diff Widget

The MemoryDiffWidget is an elaboration of the MemoryWidget type that allows side-by-side comparison of the contents of two MemoryWidgets.

Register Widget

Although it is not supported by the cdt-gdb-vscode debug adapter, the Debug Adapter Protocol supports including registers as a scope inside the response to a variables request. The RegisterWidget offers functionality to view and manipulate those values when using a debug adapter that reports register contents.

Editable Widget

Another feature not presently available from cdt-gdb-vscode but proposed for the Debug Adapter Protocol and available for implementation as a custom request to a GDB backend is direct writing of memory by address. The MemoryEditableTableWidget adds UI functionality to allow users to modify values in the table display and send them to a backend that supports that operation.

Using the Widgets

The widgets are created by the MemoryWidgetManager, and modifying the createNewMemoryWidget() method of that service allows you to change what kind of widget is instantiated and under what circumstances. The widgets get memory through the MemoryProviderService, which delegates to implementations MemoryProvider interface that are bound as MemoryProvider contributions.