Index source code
Most of the extension functionality will work out of the box on any given EDK project. However it will have the full set of features enabled when the source code its compiled and the Index database is loaded.
Once you source code its compiled you create your workspace index with the following command from the command palette:
> EDK2: Rebuild index database
Vscode will ask you to select your build directory. After that it will detect the compilations inside your build directory, you can chose a single or multiple compilations to be loaded in your index:
You can use the compile information build feature from EDK2 to provide more build information to the extension. This is optional but recommended
To enable the compile information you need to enable the build report flag in the EDK2 build command and set -Y COMPILE_INFO. You can check more information about EDK build process here
For example, if you want to build EmulatorPkg from EDK2 source, your build command will look like this:
build -p EmulatorPkg\EmulatorPkg.dsc -t VS2019 -a IA32 -Y COMPILE_INFO -y BuildReport.log
This will generate compile information in your build folder.
-Y COMPILE_INFO -y BuildReport.log will add to your build folder the CompileInfo folder:
x:\Edk2\Build\EmulatorIA32\DEBUG_VS2019\CompileInfo
After parsing is completed, some files will be created in .edkCode folder on your workspace.
This is a list of all your the files in your source that were not used during compilation. The generation of this file can be disabled in the extension settings. This file is used by VSCODE to ignore unused files. You can toggle the use of .ignore file in search:
This is the compilation database generated during build process. You can setup your C/C++ VSCODE plugging to use this compilation database to get better C parsing.
To setup compile commands in your workspace, open C/C++: edit configurations (UI) in command palette. Under Advance Settings look for Compile commands property. Set the path for ${workspaceFolder}\.edkCode\compile_commands.json as shown in the following image:
The EDK2Code extension will detect if compile_commands.json exists and will prompt the user to update the configuration
This is the list of all your files used in compilation. This file is used by Cscope to help provide C definitions.