Guide to Setting up C++ on Visual Studio Code

Note: Detailed instructions can be found here.

Step 1. Install Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

• Download and install from https://code.visualstudio.com/download.

Step 2. Install C/C++ Extension

• Open VS Code, go to Extensions (Ctrl+Shift+X), and search for “C++”. Install the C/C++ extension by Microsoft.

Step 3. Install MinGW via MSYS2

• Download the MSYS2 installer from here.
• Run the installer and follow the prompts.
• Open the MSYS2 terminal and run:

pacman -S --needed base-devel mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-toolchain

• Add C:\msys64\ucrt64\bin to your Windows PATH environment variable.

Step 4. Verity Installation

• Open Command Prompt and run:

gcc --version
g++ --version
gdb --version

Step 5. Create a Hello World programme

• Open VS Code and create a new folder for your project.
• Create a new file hello.cpp with the following content:

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    cout << "Hello, World!" << endl;
    return 0;
}

• Open the terminal in VS Code and run:

g++ hello.cpp -o hello
./hello

Step 6. Run the Hello World programme

To be updated.