GDB won't let me output my code sometimes? - c++

Question

So, I'm new to C++. I need to learn this language quick for school. But I'm walking against some issues that make it difficult to work with this language. I downloaded visual studio code and followed the steps given by my school. But now I have the problem that sometimes my code just won't print.
Here is an example of a piece of code that does print (btw, I use a "makefile" to run all of this):
#include <iostream>
int main()
{
std::cout << "Hello world!" << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Ofcourse, just a simple "hello world" but still, it does print. Now I'll give an example of a piece of code that won't print:
// C++ program to sort an
// array using bucket sort
#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;
// Function to sort arr[] of
// size n using bucket sort
void bucketSort(float arr[], int n)
{
cout << "hello" << endl;
// 1) Create n empty buckets
vector<float> b[n];
// 2) Put array elements
// in different buckets
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
int bi = n * arr[i]; // Index in bucket
b[bi].push_back(arr[i]);
}
// 3) Sort individual buckets
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
sort(b[i].begin(), b[i].end());
// 4) Concatenate all buckets into arr[]
int index = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
for (int j = 0; j < b[i].size(); j++)
arr[index++] = b[i][j];
}
/* Driver program to test above function */
int main()
{
cout << "hello" << endl;
float arr[]
= { 0.897, 0.565, 0.656, 0.1234, 0.665, 0.3434 };
int n = sizeof(arr) / sizeof(arr[0]);
bucketSort(arr, n);
cout << "Sorted array is \n";
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++)
cout << arr[i] << " ";
return 0;
}
This is an example of a bucket sort I found online. First, the "n" on the vector<float> b[n] line, gave a red line, I chose the "ignore this error" option. Second, this code won't output anything. If I look into the "debug console" I find this error: ERROR: Unable to start debugging. Unexpected GDB output from command "-exec-run". During startup program exited with code 0xc0000139.
When I looked online I saw some people give the advice to downgrade my gdb version. I want to try that, but I can't find out how to do that haha. Can someone help me get my visual studio code working? This is the most irritating part of programming to me.

Answer 1

ERROR: Unable to start debugging. Unexpected GDB output from command "-exec-run". During startup program exited with code 0xc0000139.
This error means that the program didn't start at all, i.e. died during process setup.
On UNIX this usually happens when the GDB exec-wrapper dies. But I have no idea how VSCode sets up GDB and under what conditions it would die like this.
General advice:
if you want to learn GDB, and you insist on using Windows, then learn GDB in a WSL2 environment.
if you don't want to learn GDB, learn debugging using Visual Studio
you should always learn "native" debugger for the OS you are using -- that way you avoid having to debug various "shims" which (imperfectly) emulate one environment inside another (as appears to be the case here).