Getting column value for breakpoint

[Nuthin2do]

Hi,

in our solution i registered the event onDidChangeBreakpoints to get notified when a breakpoint is set. When the event triggers then i use the data which the SourceBreakpoint contains to process the data of the breakpoint location and for this i also need the column. But unfortunately the value for the column is always 0, in short i don't get the value for the column. The same goes when i try to get the line and column from the IDebugModel (in this case the value for the column is always undefined). Please see into the breakpointMethod function of the repo.

To still get the column value i made a workaround with getLineFirstNonWhitespaceColumn from the ITextEditorModel, but this is more like a hack.

Can anybody help with this? Why would the column value always be 0 or undefined?

Thanks in advance.

NewEditor_20250129.zip

[CGNonofr]

Hello,

I'm not exactly a specialist of the VSCode debugger, but how do you set a breakpoint on something else than a whole line?

[Nuthin2do]

You are right, I set the value for an entire line, but it is crucial to know the starting column of the line, especially when using libraries like Jint. For instance, when I use this API in combination with Jint and want to set a breakpoint, I need to specify the exact column where the line starts to ensure the breakpoint is recognized. In fact, the exact position (line and column) is critical. If I set the column value to 0 by default, the breakpoint won’t be triggered.

For example, if I were to set a breakpoint at line 4 (as shown in the example from the repository), I would need the column value of 4. A column value of 0 would not trigger the breakpoint.

I assumed that since the IDebugModel includes both line and column, and the SourceBreakpoint uses Location, which is defined by Uri and Range/Position (where Position includes both line and character), and there is a Position class in VS Code itself (see: Position in vscode), the column would be relevant, and I could retrieve its value for the line where I set the breakpoint.

That’s why I was hoping to get the column value directly from the API to ensure consistency across the values I use.

[CGNonofr]

Oh actually it's possible to add a breakpoint on a specific column with the Inline breakpoint command (shift + f9)

I don't see any reason for VSCode to provide something else than column = 0 for regular breakpoint though. I've even tried through the DebugAdapter protocol, and the column is not even sent.

If it's an issue for your debugger, your best option is probably to compute it yourself 🤷