Set Up Programming Environment in VSCode and CLion

VSCode

IntelliSense

The IntelliSense of C++ and Python is supported through C/C++ extension and Python extension provided by Microsoft. After installing these extensions, custom include paths need to be configured in the C/C++ extension to ensure the correct identification of header files. An example of settings file can be found at .vscode/c_cpp_properties.json, where the header files provided by Python and pybind11 should be specified:

"includePath": [
    "${workspaceFolder}/**",
    "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.11/3.11.3/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/include/python3.11/",
    "/usr/local/lib/python3.11/site-packages/pybind11/include/"
]

This example is specific to Python v3.11 installed via HomeBrew on a Macintosh system. The second path in the example represents the location of header files provided by Python, e.g. Python.h. The third path corresponds to the location of header files provided by pybind11, e.g. pybind11/pybind11.h.

CLion

IntelliSense

Setting up an intellisense environment is straightforward in CLion. Normally, a correct CMakeLists.txt is sufficient. However, in the example CMakeLists.txt, the project is divided into two parts, the main program and the code testing part. The testing part is compiled only when an option named BUILD_TEST is enabled, as demonstrated in the following:

if(BUILD_TEST)
    add_subdirectory(test)
endif()

In this condition, the option BUILD_TEST need to be switched on in CLion’s CMake profile. According to official documents, we can achieve this by adding -DBUILD_TEST=ON to CMake options in CLion’s CMake setting panel. This ensures that intellisense for codes of testing part works correctly.