Default C/C++ configuration uses MSVC for IntelliSense rather than GCC

[rhalkyard]

The project that I am working on brings in the SPI.h header that is part of the standard Arduino distribution. This header uses the GCC-specific __attribute__() macro in several places, which causes IntelliSense to trip up and report nonsense errors in my project, since MSVC appears not to understand it.

If I modify c_cpp_properties.json to use the AVR-GCC compiler provided in the Arduino distribution, using the same command-line options that are used in the compilation process, and set intelliSenseMode to gcc-x64, I get much more sensible IntelliSense output. Since Arduino projects are always compiled using the Arduino AVR-GCC toolchain, and MSVC chokes on GCC-specific macros in official Arduino headers such as SPI.h, shouldn't this be the default value populated in c_cpp_properties.json for new projects, rather than MSVC?

The c_cpp_properties.json that I am using to make Intellisense work in my project (on a Mega2560 board) is as follows. Note that I have also modified the include paths; I can't remember what the reasoning behind them was, except for that I ran into issues with the default hardware\arduino\avr\** and tools\** paths at some point, and restricting the include paths to specific directories got things working again.

{
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Win32",
            "includePath": [
                "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arduino\\tools\\**",
                "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arduino\\hardware\\arduino\\avr\\variants\\**",
                "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arduino\\hardware\\arduino\\avr\\cores\\**",
                "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arduino\\hardware\\arduino\\avr\\libraries\\**",
                "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arduino\\hardware\\arduino\\avr\\bootloaders\\**",
                "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arduino\\hardware\\tools\\avr\\avr\\include"
            ],
            "forcedInclude": [
                "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Arduino\\hardware\\arduino\\avr\\cores\\arduino\\Arduino.h"
            ],
            "intelliSenseMode": "gcc-x64",
            "compilerPath": "\"C:/Program Files (x86)/Arduino/hardware/tools/avr/bin/avr-g++.exe\" -Wall -Wextra -c -mmcu=atmega2560 -DF_CPU=16000000L -DARDUINO=10805 -DARDUINO_AVR_MEGA2560 -DARDUINO_ARCH_AVR",
            "cStandard": "c11",
            "cppStandard": "c++17"
        }
    ],
    "version": 4
}

[kerrsmith]

I used the above code to get the vscode-arduino extension working so it shows intellisense and error highlighting. I have a detailed write up of what exactly I did to get it to work at the following location:

#765 (comment)

It is basically the code from above but I detail how to use the Arduino IDE to get the 'compilerPath' needed for different Arduino boards (such as the Nano).

Thanks for posting the above, I spent quite a while trying to figure out how to get errors and intellisense working with my Arduino code and this was the suggestion that finally got it all working.

[stale]

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