--- title: Setting up Rust development environment using VSCode on a Mac | Codurance description: A guide to setting up VSCode as the central point of your Rust development experience --- [Publications | Codurance ](https://www.codurance.com/publications) # [Setting up Rust development environment using VSCode on a Mac | Codurance](https://www.codurance.com/publications/2017/11/26/rust-vscode) Written by [Cyryl Płotnicki](https://www.codurance.com/publications/author/cyryl-płotnicki) | 26 Nov 2017 This post is a part of the upcoming series on different ways of setting up your Rust development environment. It's time for VSCode. ## Completion and highlighting While on Linux VSCode with the Rust plugin seems to work more or less out of the box, on a Mac I needed to spend some time configuring it. First things first though, let's start by installing Rust version manager, rustup. ``` curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh ``` We will be using nightly version of rust as to have one version that can compile all of our tools. This is mostly due to [`clippy`](https://github.com/rust-lang-nursery/rust-clippy) requiring a nightly compiler. ``` rustup install nightly rustup default nightly ``` We will need Rust Language Server to provide the code completion. ``` rustup component add rls-preview --toolchain nightly rustup component add rust-analysis --toolchain nightly rustup component add rust-src --toolchain nightly ``` For a more wholesome experience, please have some tools as well: ``` cargo install clippy rustfmt rustsym ``` Now finally, for the VSCode itself, press `cmd-p` and `ext install vscode-rust`. I'm using the new `Rust` extension as `Rusty Code` has been discontinued. If you're lucky - that's it, you should have working completion and highlighting in Rust files. Check this by opening any Rust source code file. If you're greeted by this message: `You have chosen RLS mode but neither RLS executable path is specified nor rustup is installed` - then we need to get the extension to get to know your setup a bit: In VSCode go to `Settings` using `cmd-,` and put the following config elements there: ``` { "rust.cargoPath": "/Users/yourusername/.cargo/bin/cargo", "rust.cargoHomePath": "/Users/yourusername/.cargo", "rust.rustfmtPath": "/Users/yourusername/.cargo/bin/rustfmt", "rust.rustsymPath": "/Users/yourusername/.cargo/bin/rustsym", "rust.rustLangSrcPath": "/Users/yourusername/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-apple-darwin/lib/rustlib/src/rust/src", "rust.mode": "rls", "rust.rls": { "executable": "/Users/yourusername/.cargo/bin/rls", "useRustfmt": true } } ``` As the paths in the config need to be absolute, remember to adjust to your situation (system username) accordingly. Now when you reload and start editing a Rust file you should see `RLS: Analysis finished` on the bottom bar and the completion and highlighting should all work. Yay ! ## Building and testing VSCode has a system of tasks that we can leverage to run the build and test from within VSCode. If you go to `Tasks->Configure` tasks it will create an empty `tasks.json` file in your repository. Change it to the following to allow for `cargo` to be hooked up as your build tool and test runner. ``` { "version": "2.0.0", "tasks": [ { "label": "build", "type": "shell", "command": "cargo build", "group": { "kind": "build", "isDefault": true }, "problemMatcher": [] }, { "label": "test", "type": "shell", "command": "cargo test", "group": { "kind": "test", "isDefault": true } } ] } ``` You can use `cmd-shift-b` to run the build now. ## Debugging For the native debugger to work we need to install another extension to VSCode called ['LLDB Debugger'](https://github.com/vadimcn/vscode-lldb/blob/master/MANUAL.md). That would be `cmd-p` and `ext install vadimcn.vscode-lldb`. After reloading VSCode you should be able to set breakpoints on the side gutter and run the program using debugger by pressing `F5`. First time doing this will result in the debugger choice window. Choose `LLDB Debugger` as your debugger and you will be greeted with a JSON configuration file in which you need to tell the debugger a few details on your project. It may look like this: ``` { "version": "0.2.0", "configurations": [ { "type": "lldb", "request": "launch", "name": "Debug", "program": "${workspaceRoot}/target/debug/name_of_your_executable", "args": [], "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}", "preLaunchTask": "build" } ] } ``` And that should be it ! Now you should be able to set breakpoints and debug through the code. Start the debugging session by pressing `F5` again - this should result in the build proceeding and then the debugger launching. ## Questions ? Any questions ? Ask on [https://users.rust-lang.org/](https://users.rust-lang.org/) and ping me the link to the post on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cyplo) or email it to me at [cyryl@codurance.com](mailto:cyryl@codurance.com). This way the answer will be visible to everyone in the community. Keep on Rusting! [This post was cross-posted to Adventurous Computing.](https://blog.cyplo.net/posts/2017/11/rust-vscode-mac.html) [View full post](https://www.codurance.com/publications/2017/11/26/rust-vscode) ```json { "@context" : "http://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Cyryl Płotnicki" }, "dateModified" : "2021-12-02T22:51:26.079Z", "datePublished" : "2017-11-26T00:00:00Z", "headline" : "Setting up Rust development environment using VSCode on a Mac", "image" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "height" : 896, "url" : "https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/3042464/Imported_Blog_Media/vscode-rust-1.jpg", "width" : 1336 }, "mainEntityOfPage" : "https://www.codurance.com/publications/2017/11/26/rust-vscode", "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "height" : 60, "url" : "/hs/hsstatic/content_shared_assets/static-1.4092/img/default-amp-logo.png", "width" : 60 }, "name" : "Publications" } } ```