Introducion

One of the most powerful tools a developer can use, a debugger.

Today you’ll learn to setup & run your python code in debugging mode inside Visual Studio Code.

If you don’t already, add a launch.json file inside the .vscode/ directory in the root folder.

In my example, I’ve created a launch.json for my Django¹ app.

I’m using a virtual environment to run my Django python application, therefore I would like to run my debugger using the python executable that exists in my virtual environment²,

Debugger Setup for Python in Virtual Environment

To do that, you need to first identify the python path inside your virtual environment. To do that, follow the steps below:

1. Activate your virtual environment

   source /path/to/virtualenvironment/bin/activate
   

2. Get the path to Python executable

   which python
   

3. Add the output to the launch.json file under configurations with key python

This is how .vscode/launch.json looks like for me for in my Django app,

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Python: Django",
            "type": "python",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/ContentPublisherX/manage.py",
            "args": [
                "runserver"
            ],
            "django": true,
            "justMyCode": true,
            "python": "/Users/tnvmadhav/Projects/Python/py/bin/python"
        }
    ]
}

Now, Visual Studio Code knows how to run a python debugger with the correct virtual environment containing the already installed requirements and dependencies.

You can now run the debugger py clicking on the 🟢 Green-Triangular-Play button in the debug sidebar.

That’s it, you can now run your program in debugging mode.

👋 – @TnvMadhav

References