Running VSCode with a Docker Container for C

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1. Install Docker Desktop https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop

   Note that if you are using windows you will also need to install WSL2. Microsoft has a great guide for that. Do this first before install Docker Desktop.

2. Run Docker Desktop. Docker desktop must be running to open a VS Code folder in a Docker container.
   

3. Install Visual Studio Code (VS Code)
   https://code.visualstudio.com/download

4. Install the Remote Development extension pack plugin for VS Code
   

5. Open a folder in a docker container (Reference: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/remote/containers)
   – Open the command pallet with the F1 key
   – Type “Remote” to get a list of remote containers commands
   – Select “Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container”
   

6. Create a new folder, or open an existing folder.

7. When prompted to “Add Development Container Configuration Files”, select “Develop C++ applications on Linux.” and “ubuntu-20.04”
   
   

8. It may take and few minutes for the container to be created and initialized.

9. Create a new file called helloworld.c and populate the file with the hello world code from C0-C-basics
   

10. Open a new terminal.
    

11. In the terminal window use gcc to compile and run helloworld.c.