Attach debugger to existing node.js process

[dpkirchner]

It would be useful to have a way to attach to an existing node.js process, perhaps by pid, and specifically one that was not started from within VSCode. There is a "Debug: Attach to node process" option, but it doesn't show all processes, and sometimes shows none.

This is related to this an already reported bug[0] and someone (in another issue that I can't find now) suggested this extension: https://github.com/aprilandjan/vscode-node-debug-process-picker but it no longer works (doesn't provide the documented command).

I'm calling it a feature request for this GH issue as it seems like it's not currently supported (or intended to be supported).

0: #10050

[dpkirchner]

Actually, I think I made a mistake. This should be filed under the vscode-js-debug project, shouldn't it? If so I'll move it over.

[connor4312]

@dpkirchner can you give an example/reproduction of a process where you expect to be able to attach but cannot?

[dpkirchner]

@dpkirchner can you give an example/reproduction of a process where you expect to be able to attach but cannot?

Sure -- I'm running my node processes inside pm2 (coincidentally also a node process), and pm2 overwrites process.title with something like node /path/to/entry/script.js (with a space). As the plugin looks for the process name by strict regex the /^(?:node|iojs)$/i the process isn't found. If I had a way to tell it to look for programs with an alternative pattern, I think it would work fine.

Another example use case that might be relevant, but that isn't exactly what I'm doing, is when someone has more than one node version installed and calls it by a different name (e.g. node-1.2.3 instead of just node).

[connor4312]

Thanks, I made that regex a bit more lenient. The next nightly build will have the fix.