No colors in task terminal

[skarasov]

Issue Type: Bug

Simple c code.
Run build task with clang or cl.
In task terminal no colored output, but in ordinary terminal all fine.

VS Code version: Code 1.69.1 (b06ae3b, 2022-07-12T08:21:24.514Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19044
Restricted Mode: No

Extensions (3)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
cmake-tools	ms-	1.11.26
cpptools	ms-	1.10.8
cmake	twx	0.0.17

(1 theme extensions excluded)

[meganrogge]

the one without color is an extension contributed terminal. you can file an issue with the C/C+ extension about this

[vscodenpa]

This issue is caused by an extension, please file it with the repository (or contact) the extension has linked in its overview in VS Code or the marketplace for VS Code. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!

[skarasov]

Please, note:
microsoft/vscode-cpptools#9643

[Colengms]

@meganrogge Note that this is not caused by the extension. Rather, something VS Code is doing with the task terminal is preventing compilers (gcc and clang) from detecting that they are in a shell terminal, causing them to disable colorized output. We can work around the problem by passing command line arguments that force gcc and clang (separately) to enable colorized output. However, the underlying issue is with VS Code. Please consider re-opening and addressing the issue in VS Code.

[meganrogge]

@Colengms thanks for the info. I'm not very familiar with how gcc and clang work, but what are those using to detect that they are in a shell terminal? environment variables?

[Colengms]

The code for gcc and clang are available online.

For GCC, I see: https://code.woboq.org/gcc/gcc/diagnostic-color.c.html
It looks like GetConsoleMode() and isatty() are being used to detect the terminal capabilities.

For Clang, I'm not sure. I just did a quick search, and see similar functionality in:
https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/main/llvm/lib/Support/Windows/Process.inc
https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/main/llvm/lib/Support/Unix/Process.inc
i.e. Calls to GetConsoleMode() and isatty() in FileDescriptorIsDisplayed

[Tyriar]

@Colengms can you link where cppbuild type tasks launch the shell?

[Colengms]

Hi @Tyriar . It looks like cpptools is calling spawn to create this process, so the cause is indeed in cpptools. You can close this issue.

It looks like the correct solution is for cpptools to use node-pty (which VS Code uses internally) to spawn a process with a pseudo-terminal. It looks like that would require us to always build the TypeScript component on the target platform, which we're not currently doing. I'm tracking that with: microsoft/vscode-cpptools#9681

[Tyriar]

@Colengms I'm not too familiar with how tasks interact with extensions, is it possible to launch a regular shell terminal instead? I think this is how the npm tasks would work since they have color

[roblourens]

Nothing to verify?