Guide to debug amber application on VSCode.

debug.md

Amber Debug

Debugging an Amber project on VSCode with GDB and Native Debug.

Requisites

• Crystal
• Amber Project
• GNU Debugger (GDB)
• VSCode + Crystal Support + Native Debug.

Steps

1. task.json to compile the main file with debug support

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "taskName": "amber",
      "command": "crystal build -d -p src/app.cr",
      "type": "shell",
      "presentation": {
        "echo": true,
        "reveal": "never",
        "focus": false,
        "panel": "shared"
      }
    }
  ]
}

2. launch.json configuration to debug binary

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Debug",
      "type": "gdb",
      "request": "launch",
      "target": "./app",
      "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
      "preLaunchTask": "amber"
    }
  ]
}

3. Then hit the green play button and whoala!

Native Debug allows to set breakpoints, watch variables and execute GDB commands inside VSCode.