Launching of custom GDB does not correctly set CWD (breaks relative paths) #815
Description
I'm trying to debug an STM32 microcontroller through OpenOCD in VSCode 1.13.0 on Windows 10.
I have this launch.json:
{ "version": "0.2.0", "configurations": [ { "name": "ARM GDB Launch", "logging": { "trace": true, "traceResponse": true, "engineLogging": true }, "type": "cppdbg", "request": "launch", "args": [], "stopAtEntry": true, "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}", "environment": [], "externalConsole": true, "MIMode": "gdb", "program": "${workspaceRoot}/BUILD/DISCO_F407VG/GCC_ARM/tracker.elf", "windows": { "miDebuggerPath": "arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe" }, "linux": { "miDebuggerPath": "arm-none-eabi-gdb" }, "miDebuggerServerAddress": "localhost:3333", "targetArchitecture": "arm", "customLaunchSetupCommands": [ { "description": "Set remote target", "text": "file BUILD/DISCO_F407VG/GCC_ARM/tracker.elf" }, { "description": "Set remote target", "text": "target remote localhost:3333" }, { "description": "Set hardware breakpoints", "text": "set remote hardware-breakpoint-limit 6" }, { "description": "Set hardware breakpoints", "text": "set remote hardware-watchpoint-limit 4" }, { "description": "Reset 1", "text": "monitor reset halt" }, { "description": "Load code", "text": "load" }, { "description": "Reset 2", "text": "monitor reset halt" } ] } ] } However, this doesn't work. I get the following error:
Unable to start debugging. Unexpected GDB output from command "-interpreter-exec console "file BUILD/DISCO_F407VG/GCC_ARM/tracker.elf"". BUILD/DISCO_F407VG/GCC_ARM/tracker.elf: No such file or directory.
However, the file is there, and if I use the full path, it works. (I do consider it bad practice to use full paths in any code, specially code that others might use).
Since it looked like a path problem, I launched SysInternals' Process Explorer and tried to find the arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe process. I found that its Current directory field is just empty! Screenshot:
One workaround that I found, at least until the bug is fixed, is to create a batch (.bat) with this content:
@arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe %* Then I changed the miDebuggerPath setting to:
"miDebuggerPath": "${workspaceRoot}/wingdb.bat" Where wingdb.bat is the name of the file I just created.
Curiously, this does work, which suggests that VSCode is not properly setting the debugger's current directory properly.