Develop Reference

How do I debug through a gdb helper script written in python?

there may very well be an answer to this question, but it's really hard to google for.
you can add commands to gdb by writing them in python. I am interested in debugging one of those python scripts that's running in gdb session.
my best guess is to run gdb on gdb and execute the user added command and somehow magically break on the python program code?
has anybody done anything like this before? I don't know the mechanism by which gdb calls python code, so if it's not in the same process space as the gdb that's calling it, I don't see how I'd be able to set breakpoints in the python program.
or do I somehow get pdb to run in gdb? I guess I can put pdb.set_trace() in the python program, but here's the extra catch: I'd like to be able to do all this from vscode.
so I guess my question is: what order of what things do I need to run to be able to vscode debug a python script that was initiated by gdb?
anybody have any idea?
thanks.

so I figured it out. it's kinda neat.
you run gdb to debug your program as normal, then in another window you attach to a running python program.
in this case the running python program is the gdb process.
once you attach, you can set breakpoints in the python program, and then when you run commands in the first window where the gdb session is, if it hits a breakpoint in the python code, it will pop up in the second window.
the tipoff was that when you run gdb there does not appear to be any other python process that's a child of gdb or related anywhere, so I figured gdb must dynamically link to some python library so that the python compiler/interpreter must be running in the gdb process space, so I figured I'd try attaching to that, and it worked.

Script runs successfully on Spyder but not directly in Python

This a conceptual question. What reasons could motivate that a script runs successfully on Spyder IDE but not directly in Python. I am in Win7-64x. I think it is because Spyder is somehow more lenient.. maybe it uses hidden modules, libs, bats..? I found this problem when I was trying to make an executable using Pyinstaller, so I step back and check running the myscript.py on python directly like this on cmd,
python myscript.py
and it runs the script but throws normal errors like "list index out of range". The thing is they don't appear if executed inside the Spyder IDE, the script in Spyder is run fine without errors. I don't know the possible reasons. There is a way to roundabout that for pyinstaller, so that the produced executable runs fine like in Spyder? Suggestions? (Win7-64x, Python3.6, Spyder3.3.3)

iPython automatically at launch in Visual Studio Code on Os X

I would like that iPython run automatically when I launch VSC instead of typing ipython and press enter in the terminal. The answer here How to set ipython/jupyter as the default python terminal for vscode? doesn't work as it is for windows but it shouldn't be really different. Also, is there something similar to the 'Execute' button in Spyder instead of typing %run filename ? Thanks !

I presume you mean you want to run the "Python Interactive Window" and not just an iPython console on startup
There is currently no way to run it on startup. At least no way without writing another extension that would run a command when opening a workspace. It would be simple for us to add one though. Probably a workspace setting. Can you log an issue here:
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python/issues/new
For you second question, 'Execute' in spyder, we have 'Run Current File in Python Interactive Window'. This works on any python file. You can get to it through the context menu on a file or through the command palette.

Sadly the nice workflow of spyder is not provided by any official extension at the moment (as far as I know).
But you can implement the basics easily on your own by writing an extension. Even with no experience in TypeScript you can quickly build an extension which starts an IPython console as soon as you open a python file. I also managed to execute a startup script which implements the runfile method. VS Code also allows keybindings for your functions, so that you can almost work like you can with spyder.
Spyder modified the IPython terminal quite a bit though, so it won't feel exactly the same. But after all, everything there is open source so you could implement it yourself, which is what I'm trying to do in my free time.

Python in VSCode: How do you run a previous command?

I'm kind of new to software development. Outside of VSCode, I can open up a terminal (let's say PowerShell), run python in it, type in a command (like 2+2), be able to click the up arrow key to find my previous command so that I can run it again.
If I run PowerShell in VSCode and do the same thing, nothing happens when I click the up arrow where I would expect my previous command to be cycled.
Is this a problem with my Python or VSCode? I've been looking for a solution for this but haven't found many useful topics on this.

This was going to just be a comment but its too long. Sorry it isn't more informative than it is. This is kind of an odd problem because VSCode isn't a true IDE. It doesn't have its own shell and just hijacks your powershell or bash terminal, depending on which OS you are using. You should be able to use your up and down arrows just like you can in powershell. I have tested it on my own VSCode installation and it works fine for me. If it's a problem, it's not with python, since VSCode will interact with the terminal the same way no matter which language you are using it for, so its probably with VSCode or your terminal. I have heard of others having issues with up arrow autocomplete in bash, so if you are connecting to a bash terminal that could be it, but I've never heard of it glitching in powershell. I'd say check which terminal you are using, see if the problem persists when you change terminals, and try reinstalling VSCode if it does. Past that, I don't know what to tell you.

I found a work-around. For me, neither git bash, nor PowerShell allowed up/down arrows for history switching within a python shell. So here it goes.
Ctr-Shift-P opens VSCode commands
Python: Create Terminal does not actuallt start python, but it does launch powershell in a mode that will enable us to succeed
py starts python shell with working up/down arrows!

what can I do if a program can be run by python console while can not be run by ipython console?

It seems that the spyder has removed python console, but I got a program can only be run by python console, what can I do? or is there any thing I am wrong?
I got some codes from github, and it needs ADB driver for Android, after I installed ADB, I can run the program in cmd using python wechat_jump_auto.py, but cannot run in spyder with ipython.

In Spyder3 installed in Windows OS, we can add the path to adb using Tools --> Current user environment variables....
Here, we can add the path to adb.exe file by appending it to the path variable. Then, we need to restart Spyder3. Then you will be able to directly run your script with access to adb.exe from Spyder3 IPython console or simply by clicking Run button.

Just came across the same problem as you recently.
In fact, it seems that program using ADB tools just cannot run in Spyder even by python console (my Spyder IDE is equipped with both Ipython console and Python console).
One practical way to solve this problem is to run your code in cmd.
Open your cmd window and do something like this:
python "xxx(path)\xxxx.py(file name)"
In my case, it looks like this:
example image
Hit Enter, and hopefully your code will run successfully.
If it still cannot run, maybe you haven't set your environment variables correctly.
Hope this can solve your problem. Good luck :)