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Debugging Typescript in Visual Studio Code and Chrome

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After a small adventure in a big data team I'm back in the Reporting Services team.

Everything is new and at the same times some things never change, but I found very quickly that SSRS is building the new portal with recent web technologies such as Angular and Typescript, check out the announcement here

I decided that I want to try to use Visual Studio code for modifying and debugging some of the new great portal features and I wasn't able to find any step by step guide to do it (I found how to debug node.js apps but not just browser apps), so I give it a shot and here are my results

Programs and basic setup

1. Install Node.js https://nodejs.org/en/

2. Install typescript https://www.typescriptlang.org/#Download

3. Install Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com/

4. Install TypeScript definitions manager https://definitelytyped.org/tsd/

5. Install the chrome debugging extension https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items/msjsdiag.debugger-for-chrome

The easiest way to do it is to open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and type install extensions

6. Install typescript definitions for angular

Move to your application directory and execute

 C:\Repos\VSCodeDebug>tsd install angular --resolve --save

7. Install the nodejs web server

 C:\Repos\VSCodeDebug>npm install -g http-server

8. Start the nodejs web server and take note of the http port

 C:\Repos\VSCodeDebug>http-server

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Running and debugging

You can use your own app or clone my super simple demo app from here https://github.com/jtarquino/VSCodeDebug where I "typescripted" the demo in https://angularjs.org/ for databinding

1. Configure the task runner to compile typescript

Try to build (Ctrl+Shift+B )

it will show that no task runner is configure

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Click in configure and it will take you to the task.json file

Comment out the Compiles HelloWorld.ts program task runner

Uncomment the second section , so you can use tsconfig.json for the parameters for the compiler

 // A task runner that calls the Typescript compiler (tsc) and

// compiles based on a tsconfig.json file that is present in

// the root of the folder open in VSCode

Open tsconfig.json and ensure the sourceMap property is set to true, this will generate the sourceMap files which allows the degugger to map the javascript files with the typescript files

 {

    "compilerOptions": {

        "sourceMap": true

    }

}

 

2. Setup the debug, press f5 to start the debugging,

First time will ask for the environment pick Chrome

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It will open the file launch.json, there are two important elements here the url and the webroot

url should be updated to your start page in my case is index.html

Update the port to use the one that the nodejs http server show when started ,in my case 8080

webroot should be the root of your application, it could be wwwroot or just the current directory, for my case is the current directory which is .  (yes just a dot)

 {

    "version": "0.2.0",

    "configurations": [

        {

            "name": "Launch index.html",

            "type": "chrome",

            "request": "launch",

            "file": "index.html"

        },

        {

            "name": "Launch localhost with sourcemaps",

            "type": "chrome",

            "request": "launch",

            "url": "https://localhost:8080/index.html",

            "sourceMaps": true,

            "webRoot": "."

        },

        {

            "name": "Attach",

            "type": "chrome",

            "request": "attach",

            "port": 9222

        }

    ]

}

 

Go to the debug button in VScode and select "Launch Localhost with source maps"

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3. Set breakpoints and run

Press f5, it will open Chrome and it will stop at any breakpoint defined by you (for some weird reason you have to click on refresh at least one time before Chrome stops in the breakpoint)

Also important to notice that is debugging in the .ts as expected (instead of the .js that you get out of the box)

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Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2016
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2016
    I believe, this issue is related to this other link: github.com/.../60 Where some guy pointed out the existence of a virtual "source" directory filled with all the original .ts files. I emphasize there is no problem debugging those .ts files from Chrome Dev Tools but breakpoints in Visual Studio code do not fire. Best.

    • Anonymous
      March 08, 2016
      Alberto,Did you manage to fix the issue. I have the exact same issue as you described.
    • Anonymous
      April 04, 2016
      Did you ever get this to work? I'm facing the same issue...

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2016
    Hello Jaime, very good post. It is the first one that describes in detail, how to debug typescript in VSC. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it run. Could your please upload a sample project, where the debuggin works. I am using the following settings: { "version": "0.2.0", "configurations": [ { "name": "Launch index.html", "type": "chrome", "request": "launch", "file": "index.html" }, { "name": "Launch localhost with sourcemaps", "type": "chrome", "request": "launch", "url": "http://localhost:8080/index.html", "sourceMaps": true, "webRoot": "." }, { "name": "Attach", "type": "chrome", "request": "attach", "port": 9222 } ]}Thank you,Stoyan

    • Anonymous
      June 20, 2016
      Hi, the project I used is available in https://github.com/jtarquino/VSCodeDebug
      • Anonymous
        July 24, 2016
        I used the same project in the above link but still doesn't work. Any other suggestions.
      • Anonymous
        August 29, 2016
        Same problem, breakpoints doesn't work.

  • Anonymous
    October 05, 2016
    Hi all, I had problems getting 'Debugger for Chrome' working where my debug session wouldn't be able to connect to Chrome's remote debugger. The problem was that remote debugging wasn't started - this happens if you already have other Chrome windows open and Chrome background processes running, VS Code will fire up another instance with the same configuration (ignoring the request for remote debugging).Solution is to add the 'userDataDir' to the configuration in 'launch.json' and run Chrome in an isolated environment. More details here: https://martaver.github.io/technology/vscode-chrome-debugging/

  • Anonymous
    January 04, 2017
    how can i debug in visual studio 2015 when using node.js

    • Anonymous
      January 31, 2017
      I haven't tried myself

  • Anonymous
    January 10, 2017
    Thank you! This tutorial saved my day (night, to be more precise). The issue was that I forgot to launch the http-server and constantly was getting "localhost refused to connect" error with "could not resolve data:text/html,chromewebdata to a file under webRoot" in the console. This is the first (and only) tutorial I found that mentions the server and how to launch it for debugging purposes.

  • Anonymous
    January 25, 2017
    This is long enough that I would like to print it to keep beside me while coding, but all of the pages come out blank. Could that be fixed?

    • Anonymous
      January 31, 2017
      to be honest never realized until you mentioned should be something with the template, try the landscape option

  • Anonymous
    January 28, 2017
    Update the links, please.

    • Anonymous
      January 31, 2017
      Which one is broken? I tried them quickly and seem to be working