I'm looking for suggestions on how to debug Lua Code in Visual Studio Code. I'm using Love2D, so I understand that I will somehow need to embed my debugging code, because it is not standalone Lua, however I would prefer a minimal augumentation of my sources.
Goal: Regular debugging with breakpoints, catch errors and variable inspection in VSCode. I don't mind which extension I use, as long as I can debug my code with ease.
What I tried so far:
Lua Debugger: It worked somehow, it hit on a breakpoint, but only when calling debuggee.poll()
and from there I couldn't step in or inspect further.
LRDB: Seems promising, but somehow the game won't start. It just hangs until I kill it with the task manager.
Code for LRDB (generic update/draw functions not included, cause they are just for testing breakpoints):
local lrdb = require "lrdb_server"
local db_port = 21110
function love.run()
lrdb.activate(db_port)
if love.load then love.load(love.arg.parseGameArguments(arg), arg) end
-- We don't want the first frame's dt to include time taken by love.load.
if love.timer then love.timer.step() end
local dt = 0
lrdb.deactivate()
-- Main loop time.
return function()
lrdb.activate(db_port)
-- Process events.
if love.event then
love.event.pump()
for name, a,b,c,d,e,f in love.event.poll() do
if name == "quit" then
if not love.quit or not love.quit() then
return a or 0
end
end
love.handlers[name](a,b,c,d,e,f)
end
end
-- Update dt, as we'll be passing it to update
if love.timer then dt = love.timer.step() end
-- Call update and draw
if love.update then love.update(dt) end -- will pass 0 if love.timer is disabled
if love.graphics and love.graphics.isActive() then
love.graphics.origin()
love.graphics.clear(love.graphics.getBackgroundColor())
if love.draw then love.draw() end
love.graphics.present()
end
if love.timer then love.timer.sleep(0.001) end
lrdb.deactivate()
end
end
Any help would be appreciated.
I literally just stumbled seconds later on a working solution here.
Install: Local Lua Debugger
Add this to your launch.json
:
[
{
"type": "lua-local",
"request": "launch",
"name": "Debug Love",
"program": {
"command": "/usr/bin/love"
},
"args": [ "${workspaceFolder} "]
}
]
put:
if os.getenv("LOCAL_LUA_DEBUGGER_VSCODE") == "1" then
require("lldebugger").start()
end
On top of your main.lua
file.
If you don't overwrite love.run
you can use this snippet to catch all errors, because I have found that some errors might not get catched correctly:
if os.getenv "LOCAL_LUA_DEBUGGER_VSCODE" == "1" then
local lldebugger = require "lldebugger"
lldebugger.start()
local run = love.run
function love.run(...)
local f = lldebugger.call(run, false, ...)
return function(...) return lldebugger.call(f, false, ...) end
end
end
Enjoy debugging!