preLaunchTask fails (non zero exit code) but launch proceeds

[devzeb]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

• VS Code Version: 1.64.0-insider, 1.63.2
• OS Version: Windows 10 Pro 20H2
• MinGW x64 environment (from MSYS2)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Follow the example of https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/cpp/config-mingw until "Step through the code"
2. Open launch.json and change "stopAtEntry" to true. This way you can better see whats happening
3. Make sure that you at least have built the application once, so that helloworld.exe can be found in the working directory
4. Open helloworld.cpp and type gibberish at any line.
5. Build the project using Ctrl+Shift+B. You can see that the build now fails.
6. Press F5 (while helloworld.cpp is the active file). Watch the terminal output, it now says that the build fails but after that the launch just proceeds and the application stops at the entry point. vscode is in debugging perspective.

I can't understand why this most basic workflow just doesn't work.
Debugging an outdated executable is just a pain to deal with.

If you run the build command in powershell (which is displayed when pressing Ctrl+Shift+B) and run $? directly after, you see that powershell returns False, so it recognises that the build fails.
cpp_test_project.zip

That means the issue has to be VSCode.

I attached a workspace which contains a minimal example.

[weinand]

@devzeb By using a "fake build task" that always returns the exit code 1, I can prove that VS Code honours the exit code correctly:

What does this mean for your case? There are two possibilities:

• you told VS Code previously to ignore the errors and debug anyway. In this case you might want to remove the setting: "debug.onTaskErrors": "debugAnyway" or
• there is a problem in the build task you are using.

[devzeb]

Having the fake build task as you showed in your example makes my launch fail as well.
So the problem seems to be something different.

I added "debug.onTaskErrors": "abort" to check if that was a problem.
Unfortunately this didn't change anything, I still get the same behaviour for the example workspace folder I provided.

The build task I'm using is the exact task of this official tutorial: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/cpp/config-mingw

It looks like this:

tasks.json

"tasks": [
        {
            "type": "cppbuild",
            "label": "buildapp",
            "command": "C:\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\g++.exe",
            "args": [
                "-fdiagnostics-color=always",
                "-g",
                "${file}",
                "-o",
                "${fileDirname}\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe"
            ],
            "options": {
                "cwd": "${fileDirname}"
            },
            "problemMatcher": [
                "$gcc"
            ],
           "group": {
                "kind": "build",
                "isDefault": true
            },
            "detail": "Vom Debugger generierte Aufgabe."
        }]

launch.json

"configurations": [
        {
            "name": "g++.exe - Aktive Datei erstellen und debuggen",
            "type": "cppdbg",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "${fileDirname}\\${fileBasenameNoExtension}.exe",
            "args": [],
            "stopAtEntry": true,
            "cwd": "${fileDirname}",
            "environment": [],
            "externalConsole": false,
            "MIMode": "gdb",
            "miDebuggerPath": "C:\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\gdb.exe",
            "setupCommands": [
                {
                    "description": "Automatische Strukturierung und Einrückung für \"gdb\" aktivieren",
                    "text": "-enable-pretty-printing",
                    "ignoreFailures": true
                }
            ],
            "preLaunchTask": "buildapp"
        }
    ]

[weinand]

@devzeb you said:

If you run the build command in powershell (which is displayed when pressing Ctrl+Shift+B) and run $? directly after, you see that powershell returns False, so it recognises that the build fails.

Since I'm using macOS I don't know whether a non-zero exit code should really result in "False".

And if this is not the problem then maybe there is an issue with the "$gcc" problem matcher.

I suggest to file an issue against the C/C++ extension (which defines the build task and the problem matcher).

[weinand]

/extCpp