Intellisense does not show function descriptions in Visual Studio Code for C++ using the clang++ compiler on macOS - c++

Question

So I'm just starting to learn C++ and I decided to use Visual Studio Code as my development environment and use the clang++ compiler on macOS.
I followed the official Using Clang in Visual Studio Code guide and ended up with the following configuration files:
tasks.json (compiler build settings)
{
"version": "2.0.0",
"tasks": [
{
"type": "shell",
"label": "[mthree] clang++ build active file",
"command": "/usr/bin/clang++",
"args": [
"-std=c++17",
"-stdlib=libc++",
"-g",
"${file}",
"-o",
"${fileDirname}/${fileBasenameNoExtension}"
],
"options": {
"cwd": "${workspaceFolder}"
},
"problemMatcher": [
"$gcc"
],
"group": {
"kind": "build",
"isDefault": true
}
}
]
}
launch.json (debugger settings)
{
"version": "0.2.0",
"configurations": [
{
"name": "[mthree] clang++ - Build and debug active file",
"type": "cppdbg",
"request": "launch",
"program": "${fileDirname}/${fileBasenameNoExtension}",
"args": [],
"stopAtEntry": false,
"cwd": "${fileDirname}",
"environment": [],
"externalConsole": false,
"MIMode": "lldb",
"preLaunchTask": "[mthree] clang++ build active file"
}
]
}
c_cpp_properties.json (compiler path and IntelliSense settings)
{
"configurations": [
{
"name": "Mac",
"includePath": [
"${workspaceFolder}/**"
],
"defines": [],
"macFrameworkPath": [
"/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks"
],
"compilerPath": "/usr/bin/clang++",
"cStandard": "c17",
"cppStandard": "c++17",
"intelliSenseMode": "macos-clang-x64"
}
],
"version": 4
}
Now my problem has to do with Intellisense -- while the code completion/suggestion works fine, I just don't see any of the function descriptions.
Here is a simple example:
No description for the append() function
If I go to the definition of the string append function, it takes me to /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/include/c++/v1/string. And yes, this file happens indeed to not have any descriptive documentation in it. Here's what it says at the top:
// -*- C++ -*-
//===--------------------------- string -----------------------------------===//
//
// The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure
//
// This file is distributed under the University of Illinois Open Source
// License. See LICENSE.TXT for details.
//
//===----------------------------------------------------------------------===//
Therefore, does anyone know what I should do in order for Intellisense to show the complete documentation (i.e tell me what the functions do in 'plain English')?
Thanks!

Answer 1

I had the same issue. I found this post. I ended up installing gcc in Homebrew, but didn't set "compilerPath": "/opt/homebrew/Cellar/gcc/11.2.0/bin/g++-11" and got the function description showing up properly.