[enhancement] Allow multiple project names in launch.json or anonymous launch.json passed in to DebugConfiguration

[robstryker]

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Our extension (vscode-server-connector) is used to run and debug application servers like tomcat, wildfly, and more, and also to deploy applications to those servers.

Our extension causes a separate process to launch these application servers, making them a third process. In return, we receive information on the java-debugger details like the host and port that we need to use to connect the debugger. Upon receipt, our extension will connect a java debugger to this process.

We currently do not pass in a project name to the debugger. This is causing users problems and error messages appear often. Here is a sample of the error message when a user sets a breakpoint on his code but it is not added to the launch.json or the anonymous launch.json properties passed into the debugger:

[Error - 2:14:32 PM] 08-Mar-2021, 2:14:32 PM No project is available for evaluation. 
[Error - 2:14:32 PM] 08-Mar-2021, 2:14:32 PM [error response][evaluate]: Cannot evaluate because of java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot evaluate, please specify projectName in launch.json.. 
Cannot evaluate because of java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot evaluate, please specify projectName in launch.json.. 
com.microsoft.java.debug.core.DebugException: Cannot evaluate because of java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot evaluate, please specify projectName in launch.json.. 
at com.microsoft.java.debug.core.adapter.AdapterUtils.createCompletionException(AdapterUtils.java:246) 
at com.microsoft.java.debug.core.adapter.handler.EvaluateRequestHandler.lambda$handle$0(EvaluateRequestHandler.java:147) 
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$AsyncSupply.run(CompletableFuture.java:1700) 
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture$AsyncSupply.exec(CompletableFuture.java:1692) 
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinTask.doExec(ForkJoinTask.java:290) 
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool$WorkQueue.topLevelExec(ForkJoinPool.java:1020) 
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.scan(ForkJoinPool.java:1656) 
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.runWorker(ForkJoinPool.java:1594) 
at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinWorkerThread.run(ForkJoinWorkerThread.java:183) 
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot evaluate, please specify projectName in launch.json. 
at com.microsoft.java.debug.plugin.internal.eval.JdtEvaluationProvider.findJavaProjectByType(JdtEvaluationProvider.java:277) 
at com.microsoft.java.debug.plugin.internal.eval.JdtEvaluationProvider.ensureDebugTarget(JdtEvaluationProvider.java:405) 
at com.microsoft.java.debug.plugin.internal.eval.JdtEvaluationProvider.evaluate(JdtEvaluationProvider.java:140) 
at com.microsoft.java.debug.plugin.internal.eval.JdtEvaluationProvider.evaluate(JdtEvaluationProvider.java:115) 
at com.microsoft.java.debug.core.adapter.handler.EvaluateRequestHandler.lambda$handle$0(EvaluateRequestHandler.java:84) ... 7 more 

The reason we do not choose a project name when launching the debugger is that there is no project in the workspace for the application server itself. Instead, users deploy applications (war, ear, osgi bundle, etc) to the application server. It is these applications the users want to debug and trace through. However, complicating the issue is that users can deploy multiple web applications or osgi bundles to the servers and many of these may be unrelated. Imagine, for example, a hello-earth and a hello-mars application, both of which need to be traced, but neither of which interact with or depend on each other.

It is clear in this situation, there is no single project name we can use in the DebugConfiguration object that would allow the user to trace the multiple independent deloyments.

We request an API enhancement such that we can set multiple project names, as well as an option to add all workspace projects, as the projects to be debugged or traced.

Environment

• Operating System: various operating systems
• JDK version: various JDKs
• Visual Studio Code version: various vscode versions
• Java extension version: v0.22.2
• Java Debugger extension version: v0.40.0

Steps To Reproduce

1. This is an enhancement request. There is no bug to reproduce.

[attach a sample project reproducing the error] There is no example project I can create to demonstrate this issue without requiring use of our extension.

attach logs There are no logs to report, other than the above error which is clearly due to the fact that we do not pass in a project name and so is likely to be attributed to us and not you.

Current Result

Expected Result

Additional Informations

[testforstephen]

From the error logs, the failure is related to the evaluation feature because the evaluation engine needs to find the context source code to compile the evaluation expression. I will take a look to see if we could automatically infer an available project from current workspace if projectName property is empty.

[robstryker]

Inferring a project might be good, but so might somehow allowing the entire workspace to be included.

If you try to infer a project, and use that project for the duration of the debug session, it might not work as I'm requesting. Imagine for example that a user deploys, again, 'hello-earth' and 'hello-mars' web applications. The user connects with the debugger and then hits the hello-earth endpoint.

If at this point the debugger infers that hello-earth is the right project to use for the session, and stores that or uses that value continuously for the duration of the session, then the user's attempt to hit the hello-mars endpoint 1 minute later will not be debugged.

The goal is to allow multiple projects to be debugged simultaneously.... not to simply infer 1 for the duration of the session.

I hope this clears up the request.