Unfortunately I don't have access to a *nix box at work or at home. The only way I can play with Haskell is on windows. Anyone here using Haskell on Windows? What's your setup?
DISCLAIMER: What's below was valid in Oct, 2013. So there is a good chance it might get outdated soon. Your edits and comments are welcome.
This is what I have done in order to get Haskell set up on my Windows 7 x64
1. Install Haskell Platform
Download and install the Haskell Platform from http://www.haskell.org/platform/windows.html
2. Install Sublime Text 3
Download and install Sublime Text 3 from http://www.sublimetext.com/3
3. Enable the Package manager in Sublime
Run Sublime
Open the console: View >> Show console
Paste the following code to the console and hit Enter (according to this):
import urllib.request,os; pf = 'Package Control.sublime-package'; ipp = sublime.installed_packages_path(); urllib.request.install_opener( urllib.request.build_opener( urllib.request.ProxyHandler()) ); open(os.path.join(ipp, pf), 'wb').write(urllib.request.urlopen( 'http://sublime.wbond.net/' + pf.replace(' ','%20')).read())
Open the command palette: Tools >> Command palette
In the command palette popup type in: Package Control: Install Package
Select the package: SublimeHaskell
4. Install Haskell tools
Cabal is the standard package manager for Haskell. What you need to do is:
Start a console with administrative permissions
Run:
cabal install cabal-install
cabal update
cabal install aeson
cabal install haskell-src-exts
cabal install ghc-mod
cabal install cmdargs
cabal install haddock
5. Install hdevtools
You can NOT install hdevtools on Windows by running: cabal instal hdevtools. What you need to do instead is:
Download the source code of hdevtools for Windows from https://github.com/mvoidex/hdevtools*
(* Currently does not work with GHC 7.10. See this fork for building with GHC 7.10 and above)
Unpack it to some folder
Go to that folder and run:
runhaskell Setup.hs configure --user
runhaskell Setup.hs build
runhaskell Setup.hs install
Watch for the path (in the console output) where the hdevtools have been installed. You will need this path when setting up the SublimeHaskell plugin in Sublime. The path should look something like this: C:\Users\Aleksey Bykov\AppData\Roaming\cabal\bin where Aleksey Bykov is the name of the current user.
6. Setting up the SublimeHaskell plugin in Sublime:
Start Sublime
Go Preferences >> Package settings >> SumblimeHaskell >> Settings - User
Make sure you configuration looks like:
{
"add_to_PATH":
[
"C:/Users/Aleksey Bykov/AppData/Roaming/cabal/bin/"
],
"enable_hdevtools": true
}
where C:/Users/Aleksey Bykov/AppData/Roaming/cabal/bin/ is that path (you got at step 5) where hdevtools (all all other toolls have been installed)
4. Save the file and restart Sublime
7. Hello world
Start Sublime
Create a new file and save it immediately as hello-world.hs
Put the following code there:
main::IO()
main = putStrLn "Hello world!"
Build and run by going Tools >> Build x 2 times (first it builds, second it runs)
8. See also
There is another great article: http://howistart.org/posts/haskell/1
I've used Haskell on Windows, but only when forced to. Not because the combination Haskell+Windows is particularly bad, but just because I don't really like Windows.
My setup was basically the following:
GHC
Vim
MinGW
Console
CMake
Visual Studio Express
As you can see I was trying to get an environment that was as similar to Unix as possible (without using cygwin, because I find it utterly confusing). Vim is my favourite editor. The reason for Visual Studio was that the C environment shipped with GHC doesn't cover all of Win32API. I used CMake to get a decent build environment.
Haskell Platform is now more or less the standard distribution of haskell, and it has a windows installer.
GHC is a state-of-the-art, open source, compiler and interactive environment for the functional language Haskell.
There is a Windows installer for GHC, but it for Version 6.4.2 .
A Windows .exe (not an .msi installer) for version 6.10.1 is at http://www.haskell.org/ghc/dist/6.10.1/
It is not clear when the current (GHC 6.10.1) version will offer a Windows installer.
No one seems to have mentioned Atom yet, which I've been using for a few weeks now. It's not quite as stable and mature as ST3 yet, but it looks promising and offers cabal (partial) and ghc-mod (good) integration via plugins.
How to install Haskell in windows10 :
Step01: open windows powershell (run as administrator) and run the following command as instructed:
command 1 : command = Get-ExecutionPolicy, If it returns "Restricted" then run this command = Set-ExecutionPolicy AllSigned
command 2 : command = Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))
(note: type "Y" whenever it asks and click enter )
step02:run the following command(in windows powershell (run as administrator)):
command = choco install haskell-dev haskell-stack
(note: type "Y" whenever it asks and click enter )
after running this command close the powershell
step03: verification if you did everything right:
open command prompt and run the following code:
command = ghc --version
output should be = The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 9.2.1
(minimize the command prompt)
how to run a simple code and get output :
step01: open command prompt and run the following commands one by one:
cd \
cls
mkdir dev
cd dev
cls
notepad hello.hs
notepad will open and now write the following program and save it :
program:
main = do
print "My first Haskell program"
name <- getLine
print ("Hello, " ++name)
write this and save
step 02 : to run the program open command prompt that was minimized before and run the following commands:
commands=
ghc hello.hs
hello
You should get the output as : My first Haskell program.
To use the same in vs code: after you do the above steps open(open with vs code) hello.hs file in c drive dev folder and then in extentions install Haskell Syntax Highlighting and run the same commands in terminal choose command prompt as default rather than windows powershell.
(note before you open the .hs in vs code make sure you delete every other file expect the hello.hs file)
I recall using hugs with some success a while ago. I was just playing around though.
I based on Magnus solution. I have to state that I'm normally GNU/Linux user and I had to port low level packages (like this one).
Console
Haskell Platform (it contains GHC and, on Windows, MinGW)
Cygwin with X
XEmacs
Installing it on windows is much more difficult and painful that on a Mac (as it is with almost all dev software). That being said, here is the simplest way to set up a Haskell environment on Windows 10:
Open Powershell as Aministrator (right click, and "Run as Administrator").
1 In Powershell, check your execution policy as follows:
Get-ExecutionPolicy
2 If you get "Restricted", you need to change it. Execute this command:
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process
3 When you get a question prompt, type:
A
Hit Enter.
4 Verify your policy again with Get-ExecutionPolicy. Now your policy should be "Bypass".
5 Double check that you have Chocolatey:
choco
6 Install Haskell:
choco install haskell-dev
It takes a while..
7 Start coding in Haskell!
http://learnyouahaskell.com/starting-out
Or You could partition your hard-drive a duel boot between linux and windows :)
Doesn't answer your question, but it is an alternative.
You could install Sun's VirtualBox, and install Linux on it.
Related
bad English (sorry).
I'm trying to get nvim_treesitter to work on my windows machine, on my Linux one it worked great but now when I try on windows the :checkhealth nvim_treesitter gives:
health#nvim_treesitter#check
Installation
ERROR: tree-sitter executable not found
OK: git executable found.
ERROR: cc executable not found.
ADVICE:
Check that either gcc or clang is in your $PATH
Parser/Features H L F I
Legend: H[ighlight], L[ocals], F[olds], I[ndents]
*) multiple parsers found, only one will be used
x) errors found in the query, try to run :TSUpdate {lang}
and I'm totally new to this thing, any advice would help:)
The main issue from my perspective is "ERROR: cc executable not found.". It means nvim_treesitter couldn't find any compiler on your machine, and so no parsers could be compiled and installed when you issue ":TSInstall {some_parser_name}" commands.
If you have Visual Studio installed (since nvim gets compiled by VS 2017, it's fine to have 2017 or 2019 studio, I guess), try this:
Run "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 201x" if you've downloaded nvim-win64 release package or "x86 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 201x" otherwise (nvim-win32 package)
Run nvim in this command prompt (i.e. nvim-qt GUI)
Install any parsers you want, let's say ":TSInstall c". Output should look like this:
Downloading...
Compiling...
Treesitter parser for c has been installed.
Optionally run :checkhealth nvim_treesitter again to see if everything is fine
Thereafter you can run nvim in any console, not via VS Tools one only (still use it to install or update parsers though).
Please also see https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter/wiki/Windows-support for various instructions.
For the Error: tree-sitter: You can checkout creating parsers and follow the description or you download the windows binary of the binary files and put it into a directory on your PATH.
For the Error: cc: You need to install gcc
Try to apply this vsc tutorial from Prerequisites №3
I had the same issue. It helped me.
Ok, here's what I've done and what helped me:
Go to https://www.msys2.org and follow ALL of the installation steps that are described there:
Download and install
Run pacman -Syu comman
Run pacman -S --needed base-devel mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain and choose mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc there.
After everything is installed, put into your PATH Environment Variable the path to MinGW64\bin folder (if you installed everything to the default folder it will be c:\msys64\mingw64\bin)
And you are good to go! Now open nvim and run
:TSInstall <yourlang>
For example, :TSInstall php
PS: you can get the list of available languages using :TSInstallInfo
I need to setup a simple and compelling dev environment for small proyects written in Haskell in Windows machines for freshmen.
I have tried several ways to integrate Haskell into VSCode in Windows with no success.
I had a nice setup a few years ago, but I´m finding problems with dependencies recreating that environment:
Editor: Atom
Global binaries build using: stack with ghc-mod hlint stylish-haskell
Atom plugins: language-haskell, ide-haskell, ide-haskell-repl, haskell-ghc-mod
It seems that the "cool" way right now is Language Server Protocol + VScode. ghc-mod seems not to be mantained anymore, Intero has reached EOL, HEI is merging with another project... Having a stable and updated dev environment looks like a moving target.
So, the question is: does anyone have reproducible step-by-step instructions for having VSCode working with Haskell in Windows?
I will test any suggestion in a fresh Windows 10 64bits VM and report the results.
Note: VSCode + Docker container is not an option. Most of the student´s machines have 4GB RAM.
Thanks in advance.
There's a tool called ghcid (not to be confused with ghcide) that, while nowhere near a full-blown IDE, is pretty robust and provides some niceties like re-compiling on save and showing compile errors. It doesn't support go-to-definition though. It has a VSCode plugin.
Here's a possible way of setting up things in Windows:
Download the GHC 8.8.3 binaries for Windows from here.
Download the cabal-install 3.0.0.0 binaries for Windows from here.
Decompress them in some folder.
Add entries to your PATH environment variable so that it has access to the /bin folder of the GHC installation and to the folder containing the cabal executable.
Open a Powershell console.
Run cabal udpate
Run cabal install --install-method=copy --installdir=somefolder ghcid to install the ghcid executable, where "somefolder" is the destination folder. (If the installation fails, try running the command from a Git Bash or Cygwin terminal as a workaround.) Put the destination folder in PATH.
Open (or restart) VSCode and install the "Haskell Syntax Highlighting" and haskell-ghcid plugins.
Go to an example cabal project, use the Ctrl-Shift-P shortcut, and execute the Start ghcid action. The ghcid terminal will appear.
Example of a ghcid session showing an error:
The haskell-ghcid plugin can read a .ghcid file in the project root containing flags that should be passed to the ghcid command.
Extra instructions to set up code formatting:
Install the ormulu formatter by running cabal install ormolu --install-method=copy --installdir=somefolder. Again, make sure that the destination folder in in PATH.
Open (or restart) VSCode and install the ormulu plugin.
Now the "Format Document" and "Format Selection" actions in VSCode will use ormulu.
Another way of installing GHC and getting to ghcid and ormulu could be by using the stack tool, which handles GHC installation by itself.
A Unix (mac/Linux) user who has been forced to work on a windows machine here :)
I have scripted loads of work in GnuPlot and don't want to switch to other programs at this moment. I would appreciate it if you could help me know how to install GnuPlot On windows (more specifically windows 10). questions:
I know there are two options according to this page, Cygwin and MinGW. which one is better?
I have MinGW installed and I know I need to install one of the options from this page but I don't know which one(s)! and how.
I have searched the internet but it seems most of the search results are for compiling. I don't want to go through compiling and all the hassle.
I tried installing the binary from this link, and when I try to run the program this is the error I get:
Unable to execute file:
C:\Program Files\gnuplot\bin\wgnuplot.exe
CreatProcess failed; Code267.
The directory name is invalid.
I would appreciate it if you could give me a very simple stepwise installation (1 2 3 ...), preferably with visuals, and instructions.
P.S. A nice way to install Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) on Windows and keep them updated, is to use package managers like Chocolatey. There are GnuPlot chocolatey packages here. Just install choco as instructed here. Then use choco install Gnuplot to have the software installed.
You don't have to install MinGW or Cygwin. Actually packages compiled in MinGW are compatible with Windows. Just download the binary of gnuplot from Their repo and you are good to go.
Additional points:
When installing, check which terminals you want to set up; also
check if you want the installer to add the PATH variable to your
system. Also, create a desktop shortcut.
After installation, you should see the desktop shortcut. Clicking on it should open a terminal-based gnuplot (which hopefully you are familiar with).
Please note that I have used the x11 terminal (you can get this working by installing xming). There are other options such as windows and qt terminals, but I am not an expert on using these.
You should have Administrator rights on this machine.
Right click on MinGW, Run as Administrator, install - should be OK.
Good luck!
BR, Alex
You can try
$~ scoop install gnuplot
Installing 'Gnuplot' (5.4.5) [64bit] from main bucket
gp545-win64-mingw.7z (37.7 MB) [=======================================] 100%
Checking hash of gp545-win64-mingw.7z ... ok.
Extracting gp545-win64-mingw.7z ... done.
Linking ~\scoop\apps\Gnuplot\current => ~\scoop\apps\Gnuplot\5.4.5
Creating shim for 'gnuplot'.
Creating shortcut for GNUPlot (wgnuplot.exe)
'Gnuplot' (5.4.5) was installed successfully!
I'm following the instructions of someone whose repository I cloned to my machine. I want to use the make command as part of setting up the code environment, but I'm using Windows. I searched online, but I could only find a make.exe file, a make-4.1.tar.gz file (I don't know what to do with it next) and instructions for how to download MinGW (for GNU; but after installing it I didn't find any mention of "make").
How do I use make in Windows without a GNU compiler or related packages?
make is a GNU command so the only way you can get it on Windows is installing a Windows version like the one provided by GNUWin32. Anyway, there are several options for getting that:
The most simple choice is using Chocolatey. First you need to install this package manager. Once installed you simlpy need to install make (you may need to run it in an elevated/admin command prompt) :
choco install make
Other recommended option is installing a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL/WSL2), so you'll have a Linux distribution of your choice embedded in Windows 10 where you'll be able to install make, gccand all the tools you need to build C programs.
For older Windows versions (MS Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 / Vista / 2008 / 7 with msvcrt.dll) you can use GnuWin32.
An outdated alternative was MinGw, but the project seems to be abandoned so it's better to go for one of the previous choices.
GNU make is available on chocolatey.
Install chocolatey from here.
Then, choco install make.
Now you will be able to use Make on windows.
I've tried using it on MinGW, but it should work on CMD as well.
The accepted answer is a bad idea in general because the manually created make.exe will stick around and can potentially cause unexpected problems. It actually breaks RubyInstaller: https://github.com/oneclick/rubyinstaller2/issues/105
An alternative is installing make via Chocolatey (as pointed out by #Vasantha Ganesh K)
Another alternative is installing MSYS2 from Chocolatey and using make from C:\tools\msys64\usr\bin. If make isn't installed automatically with MSYS2 you need to install it manually via pacman -S make (as pointed out by #Thad Guidry and #Luke).
If you're using Windows 10, it is built into the Linux subsystem feature. Just launch a Bash prompt (press the Windows key, then type bash and choose "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows"), cd to the directory you want to make and type make.
FWIW, the Windows drives are found in /mnt, e.g. C:\ drive is /mnt/c in Bash.
If Bash isn't available from your start menu, here are instructions for turning on that Windows feature (64-bit Windows only):
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
Download make.exe from their official site GnuWin32
In the Download session, click
Complete package, except sources.
Follow the installation instructions.
Once finished, add the <installation directory>/bin/ to the PATH variable.
Now you will be able to use make in cmd.
Install Msys2 http://www.msys2.org
Follow installation instructions
Install make with $ pacman -S make gettext base-devel
Add C:\msys64\usr\bin\ to your path
On windows 10 or 11, you can run the command winget install GnuWin32.Make in the command line or powershell to quickly install it. Than you can use the command cmake.
There is no need to install choco anymore.
The chances are that besides GNU make, you'll also need many of the coreutils. Touch, rm, cp, sed, test, tee, echo and the like. The build system might require bash features, if for nothing else, it's popular to create temp file names from the process ID ($$$$). That won't work without bash. You can get everything with the popular POSIX emulators for Windows:
Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.org/) Probably the most popular one and the most compatible with POSIX. Has some difficulties with Windows paths and it's slow.
GNUWin (http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/) It was good and fast but now abandoned. No bash provided, but it's possible to use it from other packages.
ezwinports (https://sourceforge.net/projects/ezwinports) My current favorite. Fast and works well. There is no bash provided with it, that can be a problem for some build systems. It's possible to use make from ezwinports and bash from Cygwin or MSYS2 as a workaround.
MSYS 1.19 abandoned. Worked well but featured very old make (3.86 or so)
MSYS2 (https://www.msys2.org/) Works well, second fastest solution after ezwinports. Good quality, package manager (pacman), all tooling available. I'd recommend this one.
MinGW abandoned? There was usually MSYS 1.19 bundled with MinGW packages, that contained an old make.exe. Use mingw32-make.exe from the package, that's more up to date.
Note that you might not be able to select your environment. If the build system was created for Cygwin, it might not work in other environments without modifications (The make language is the same, but escaping, path conversion are working differently, $(realpath) fails on Windows paths, DOS bat files are started as shell scripts and many similar issues). If it's from Linux, you might need to use a real Linux or WSL.
If the compiler is running on Linux, there is no point in installing make for Windows, because you'll have to run both make and the compiler on Linux. In the same way, if the compiler is running on Windows, WSL won't help, because in that environment you can only execute Linux tools, not Windows executables. It's a bit tricky!
I could suggest a step by step approach.
Visit GNUwin
Download the Setup Program
Follow the instructions and install GNUWin. You should pay attention to the directory where your application is being installed. (You will need it later1)
Follow these instructions and add make to your environment variables. As I told you before, now it is time to know where your application was installed.
FYI: The default directory is C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\.
Now, update the PATH to include the bin directory of the newly installed program.
A typical example of what one might add to the path is: ...;C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin
Another alternative is if you already installed minGW and added the bin folder the to Path environment variable, you can use "mingw32-make" instead of "make".
You can also create a symlink from "make" to "mingw32-make", or copying and changing the name of the file. I would not recommend the options before, they will work until you do changes on the minGW.
I once had the same problem. But I am surprised not to find one particular solution here.
Installation from GnuWin32 or via winget are good and easy options. But I only found make 3.8.1 there. This version lacks the very important option -O, which handles the output correctly when compiling multithreaded.
choco appears to offer make 4.3, currently. So one could expect recent versions there.
But there is also the option of self compiling. And if you have to install make, which is used for compiling, this should be a valid option.
head to https://www.gnu.org/software/make/ and download a version of your liking
unpack the tar.gz files (use 7zip and unpack the file twice to retrieve the actual content)
navigate to the created directory
open command prompt in that directory
run build_w32.bat gcc This will start the compilation with the gcc compiler, which you would need to install in advance. When running build_w32.bat without any option they try to use the MSVC compiler. Sidenote: I found it surprising that gnu does not use gcc as default but MSVC :-)
ignore the warnings created during compilation. The result should still be fine
retrieve your fresh gnumake.exe from the directoy GccRel (when compiled with gcc)
put this file somewhere where you like and rename to make.exe
add the location to the system variable %PATH%
As others have noted: This manual installation might cause conflicts if you have various make versions installed by other programs as well.
You can also install scoop, then run:
scoop install make
One solution that may helpful if you want to use the command line emulator cmder. You can install the package installer chocately. First we install chocately in windows command prompt using the following line:
#"%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"
refreshenv
After chocolatey is installed the choco command can be used to install make. Once installed, you will need add an alias to /cmder/config/user_aliases.cmd. The following line should be added:
make="path_to_chocolatey\chocolatey\bin\make.exe" $*
Make will then operate in the cmder environment.
Install npm
install Node
Install Make
node install make up
node install make
If above commands displays any error then install Chocolatey(choco)
Open cmd and copy and paste the below command (command copied from chocolatey URL)
#"%SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -NoProfile -InputFormat None -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command " [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET "PATH=%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"
I was trying to get Rust to work on my Windows box. I followed the instructions, however when I tried hello world program, it spits the below. It looks like it has not been able to link up to gcc.. and I have gcc out there. Could someone help me figure out what is the issue here?
$ rustc foo.rs
error: linking with `gcc` failed: exit code: 1
note: gcc arguments: '-m32' '-LC:\Program Files (x86)\Rust\bin\rustlib\i686-pc-m
ingw32\lib' '-o' 'foo' 'foo.o' '-shared-libgcc' '-LC:\MinGW\msys\1.0\home\ENwank
wo\.rust' '-LC:\MinGW\msys\1.0\home\ENwankwo' 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Rust\bin\r
ustlib\i686-pc-mingw32\lib\libstd-3e5aeb83-0.9.rlib' 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Rus
t\bin\rustlib\i686-pc-mingw32\lib\libgreen-83b1c0e5-0.9.rlib' 'C:\Program Files
(x86)\Rust\bin\rustlib\i686-pc-mingw32\lib\librustuv-2ba3695a-0.9.rlib' '-lws2_3
2' '-lpsapi' '-liphlpapi' '-lmorestack'
note: gcc: fatal error: -fuse-linker-plugin, but liblto_plugin-0.dll not found
compilation terminated.
error: aborting due to previous error
task 'rustc' failed at 'explicit failure', C:\bot\slave\dist2-win\build\src\libs
yntax\diagnostic.rs:75
task '<main>' failed at 'explicit failure', C:\bot\slave\dist2-win\build\src\lib
rustc\lib.rs:453
This is how to install Rust on windows with Visual Studio Code and optionally MSYS2 MinGW
You can Instal Rust without installing "Microsoft C++ Build Tools". You can also use Rust with the gcc or clang tools from the MSYS2 suite.
I didn't want to install Rust on Windows with the required "Microsoft C++ Build Tools" because this would need too much disk space.
To get Microsoft C++ Build Tools on Windows you need to download a full Windows SDK which is very large (I think more than 4GB).
You can run and debug Rust programs without installing MSYS2.
If you want to use the gcc or clang compilers that are included in MSYS2 (you will need to install them in a separate step from the MSYS2 installation, using the version of the pacman package manager from MSYS2), then you can install MSYS2.
(MSYS2 also allows you build very easily, C++ programs inside Visual Studio Code with the C++ extensions installed, using the gcc or clang compilers).
The MSYS2 installation version needs 1.61 GB for MSYS2 ( The tools installed using mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain occupy 1083.49 MiB of disk space out of the 1.61 for the total MSYS2 suite).
Rust installs about 1.46 GB of files - mostly in the "C:\Users\user\.rustup" folder when using the parameter "x86_64-pc-windows-gnu" (for a MSYS MinGW install).
Rust takes up 900 MB after installation, when using "x86_64-pc-windows-msvc" (for a "Microsoft C++ Build Tools" install).
For a better Rust experience inside VS Code it is recommended to install the rust-analyzer extension Online from the VS Code Marketplace, or instead of it, the Rust plugin from [Link1] below, at the bottom of the post.
All you have to do is:
Install Visual Studio Code
(Optional - Install MSYS2)
Install Rust
Install Pyton if you don't have it
Add the required folders to the PATH variable
Install rust-analyzer and CodellDB extensions inside VS Code
At the end of this guide you should be able to run and debug rust programs inside Visual Studio Code.
MSYS2 is optional, you can install it if you want to use the gcc or clang from the suite - after creating the cargo config file, the cargo build and cargo run commands will use msys64\mingw64\bin\clang++.exe (by default if both compilers are installed, or ..\msys64\mingw64\bin\gcc.exe if you set it up to do this).
Just follow the installation from Part 1 - below.
(This part is just for reference - it lists the files and folders required for setup and how I chose the installation directories - )
I installed the programs inside these folders:
D:\Applications\msys64
D:\Applications\VSCode
rustup-init.exe installs the .cargo folder in the default location:
C:\Users\user\.cargo
( The settings files for VS Code are created and edited inside the Visual Studio Code editor, you don't need to open the files form windows explorer:
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\settings.json
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\keybindings.json
)
Part 1 - Installation Steps with Details:
I will use the code needed to run the installation programs inside "quotes" - remove the quotes when you run the commands.
For example: "pacman -Syu" - remove the quotes and just run pacman -Syu .
Change the paths in the tutorial, for your installations.
The programs needed are VS Code, MSYS2 (MSYS2 has files/tools from MinGW), the rust-analyzer extension for VS Code for code completion and the CodeLLDB extension (with the author Vadim Chugunov) for debugging.
Make sure to have the Windows Firewall setup to allow connections out for MSYS2, VS Code, the Rust installer - rustup-init.exe (maybe rustup later on - during this tutorial you don't need it) and D:\Applications\msys64\usr\bin\pacman.exe. This will allow the programs to download necessary files for components or plugins.
a)
Download Visual Studio Code portable version for Windows from filehorse.com and extract the files (or install it any way you like).
Open VS Code and disable the 2 telemetry options from the settings:
Click on Edit > Preferences > Settings, type telemetry in the input box and disble the 2 telemetry options (or press the key combo: Ctrl + Shift + P, type open settings and press Enter to open the 'settings.json' file)
this will put inside the "settings.json" file this code, between the main open and close curly braces:
"telemetry.enableCrashReporter": false,
"telemetry.enableTelemetry": false
Good fonts to use inside VS Code are: Fira Code, Consolas, DejaVu Sans Mono, Droid Sans Mono Slashed, Inconsolata-g, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono , Lucida Console, maybe Menlo Regular (was used in MacOS), Meslo LG DZ.
Fonts like 'Fira Code' have font ligatures present inside the font. 'Fire Code' doesn't have traditional font ligatures for example ft is not connected, but has ligatures specific for coding, for example the look of these character combinations are changed and usually look better with ligatures enabled: fl , -> , <= , >= . See the image below the post for an image with font ligatures on vs off.
To enable font ligatures, open the Preferences for Visual Studio Code, search for ligatures in the search box, and enable the setting: 'Editor:Font Ligatures' .
You can change the default user data directory from:
"C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\Code" to your desired location, e.g. :
"D:\Applications\VSCode\UserData\Code"
by creating a shortcut for VSCode with the parameter --user-data-dir, that you'll use to launch VS Code.
To do this create a shortcut for VSCode with the setting for Target: D:\Applications\VSCode\Code.exe --user-data-dir "D:\Applications\VSCode\UserData\Code"
b) This step is Optional, follow it only if you want to use gcc or clang from MSYS2:
You can run Rust programs and compile them in Visual Studio Code without installing MSYS2. Install MSYS2 only if you want to use its gcc or clang compiler.
Optional - Install MSYS2 - this is about 1.61 GB.
Download MSYS2 and follow the installation instructions - I will mention the most important steps:
Install MSYS2 and keep the checkbox selected: "run MSYS2 64bit" at the end of the installation.
Run pacman -Syu in the console that appears after the installation. This is the MSYS2 shell.
!!! For the next step, be careful an choose the right shortcut Don't choose the MinGW one, so
run the shortcut named "MSYS2 MSYS" from Start menu (it is "D:\Applications\msys64\msys2_shell.cmd -msys"). This is the MSYS2 shell.
Inside the shell run pacman -Su .
The next step is to download the programs needed to build the programs written in Rust, for the Windows Platform:
From the start menu run "MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit" (it is "D:\Applications\msys64\msys2_shell.cmd -mingw64"). This is for MinGW and it has a different parameter from the shortcut used above.
Run pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain.
Press Enter, Enter and type 'y' during the installation process.
( The guide on the msys2.org page said to also install some packages using the option '--needed base-devel' by runnig the command "pacman -S --needed base-devel mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain", but I don't think they are needed here.
If you want, you can install single tools and their dependencies from the list of tools installed by the command "--needed base-devel", by selecting their corresponding number during the installation, for example you can just install make and not the rest of the tools present in the "--needed base-devel" package.
The simple rust "hello world" program that I wrote in rust using VS Code and the rustc and cargo tools/programs ran well without installing the "--needed base-devel" files.
The --needed base-devel files are not needed to run and debug simple Rust programs,but you can install them if you want.
To use the gcc or clang linker and compiler from MSYS2 you have to create the C:\Users\user\.cargo\config file:
To make the cargo use clang++.exe , add these lines to the C:\Users\user\.cargo\config file:
[target.x86_64-pc-windows-gnu]
linker = "D:\\Applications\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\clang++.exe"
ar = "D:\\Applications\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\llvm-ar.exe"
If you want to change the linker to gcc, create the C:\Users\user\.cargo\config file that contains the lines:
[target.x86_64-pc-windows-gnu]
linker = "D:\\Applications\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\gcc.exe"
ar = "D:\\Applications\\msys64\\mingw64\\bin\\ar.exe"
(clang++.exe is the same file as clang.exe from the same directory.)
I got everything installed and running well - I could run the programs and debug them using gcc or clang.
)
c)
Install Rust for Windows
Download the installer: rustup-init.exe from rust-lang.org
The browser should recognize that you ar using Windows and give you the link to "DOWNLOAD RUSTUP-INIT.EXE (64-BIT)" , that is:
[...]static.rust-lang.org/rustup/dist/x86_64-pc-windows-msvc/rustup-init.exe
Run rustup-init.exe . It is better to launch a console with cmd.exe and launch rustup-init.exe from there.
choose "Continue? (y/N)" by typing y and hitting the Enter key.
choose "2) Customize installation" using the keyboard.
paste or type the option: x86_64-pc-windows-gnu .
Press enter for the rest of the options.
Finally type "1" as input in the console, then press Enter, to choose the option "1 to proceed" with the Current installation Options.
There might be problems if you had rustup already installed.
If you already have rustup installed follow the indications on the guide at Source 1 Link at the bottom of the page with the step-by-step-instruction-to-install-rust-and-cargo-for-mingw-with-msys2 :
This is a quote from that post:
"Note: If rustup is already installed, then rerunning rustup-init won't actually install the requested toolchain. Instead, run rustup toolchain install stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu if you already have the MSVC-based toolchain. Then run rustup default stable-x86_64-pc-windows-gnu to set the GNU-based toolchain as the default."
d) Add the folders to the PATH
Add the folders that have useful programs from rust and msys2 to the Windows system PATH variable:
Adding the folders to the system PATH variable will allow VS Conde console, which defaults to PowerShell (you can change it to Command Prompt or other shell if you want), to recognize the commands:
cargo, rustc, etc.
This will make running and debugging rust programs in VS Code with the rust-analyzer and CodeLLDB extensions easy because you don't have to configure anything else.
To add the folders to the PATH use the System Properties window:
Right click on "My Computer" and select "properties"
Click on Advanced System Settings
In the Advanced tab, click on "Environment Variables"
under 'User variables for user' click on the PATH Variable and add the locations of your cargo\bin folder and mingw64\bin folder, (plus \msys64):
;C:\Users\user\.cargo\bin;D:\Applications\msys64;D:\Applications\msys64\mingw64\bin
This will add the folders "C:\Users\user\.cargo\bin", "D:\Applications\msys64", "D:\Applications\msys64\mingw64\bin" to the PATH variable. (stackoverflow is bad at formatting \. backslash followed by a dot - you have to use another backslash as an escape character)
To test that the PATH variable is updated open a NEW Command Prompt or PowerShell window, and in this window run cargo --version or gcc --version (if you installed MSYS2 and gcc.exe) or rustc --version inside a 'Command Prompt' window and inside a PowerShell Window.
If the commands are not found, restart your computer so that Windows can update the PATH variable. For me the change worked without having to restart, I just had to open a new shell window.
e) Install the Rust extensions for VS Code
rust-analyzer and CodeLLDB require Python to be installed.
Install Python 3.6.3, for example, and select to add it to the path during installation.
From the VS Code Marketplace install the needed extensions.
Open VS Code, click on the Extensions button on the right toolbar, and search and install the extensions:
rust-analyzer - (publisher: matklad) ;
CodeLLDB (publisher: Vadim Chugunov);
( I didn't have to do this next step so you shouldn't either - if rust-analyzer doesn't load/run properly, you may need to install the rust source code.
Using the 'Command Prompt' run: rustup component add rust-src to install the rust Source Code.
I didn't have to install it, the rust-analyzer worked well [ by the way, the VS Code could connect to the internet during testing].
)
[While running Visual Studio Code you may get a message telling you to install .Net Framework 4.5.2. Download and install the Offline version if the online version fails to install. (On Windows 7 without some updates, you may have to download and install the certificate: MicRooCerAut2011_2011_03_22.crt, and install some windows updates: Windows6.1-KB2533623-x64, windows6.1-kb2813430-x64, and maybe Windows6.1-KB4019990-x64 ) ]
Part 2 - Running and Debugging Rust programs with VS Code
Running and compiling in Rust with VS Code and Msys2:
After adding the folders to the PATH and installing the extensions, you basically need to run:
cargo init
cargo run - to run the program.
press the F5 key, or click the debug button to debug the code.
First you need to:
Create a folder for your Rust app.
Open the folder inside VS Code.
Press Ctrl+{`} to open the terminal panel.
The default shell will be 'PowerShell'.
You can select the 'Command prompt' shell from the Terminal pane using the down arrow on the left, that is near the plus button and x button.
Or you can set VS Code to use 'Command Prompt' as the default shell by adding the lines to the 'settings.json' file - the main Visual Studio Settings file.
"terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "Command Prompt",
You can use PowerShell or 'Command Prompt', they both work fine.
Run cargo init inside the terminal to create the project files.
Edit the main.rs file if you want. It is located inside 'app folder'\src\main.rs
Run cargo run inside the terminal
If you have rust-analyzer installed, the extension puts 2 buttons as popups on top of the main() function.
They are named 'Run' and 'Debug' and if clicked they do what their names say.
To debug, put a breakpoint inside your main.rs file and hit F5 (the menu entry Run > Start Debugging) or click the Debug button on top of the main() function placed there by the rust-analyzer extension if you have it installed.
If you click the debug button you don't have to create a launch.json config file.
If you hit the F5 key or click the menu entry Run > Start Debugging, a launch.json file will be added to your folder.
Just click Yes in the message box to auto generate the launch.json file.
Then hit the F5 key again to start debugging.
Now you can step through your code during the debugging process.
Link 1: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rust-lang.rust
Link to Font Ligatures example - Image for the font 'Fira Code':
Image Link: Coding font with font ligatures
This question is old, but in the mean time a lot has changed.
The easiest way to install on Windows is to go to the Rust installation page and download and run rustup-init.exe. It installs rustc, rustup and similar tools. It just works™.