Visual Studio Community 2017 spaces in launch.json args field - json

Question

I'm currently trying to set the debugging startup arguments for a CMake based project in Visual Studio Community 2017. Normally this would be done via the launch.vs.json file. However, the arguments that I need to pass contain spaces in them. For example, the below launch.vs.json file should pass the arguemnts FIRST ARGUMENT and SECOND ARGUMENT as the first and second argument. However, the program ends up getting 4 arguments: FIRST, ARGUMENT, SECOND, and ARGUMENT. I've tried various different encodings for spaces, but cannot get a space to be encoded properly in the resulting arguments. This is especially problematic as one of the arguments to my program is a path inside C:\Program Files. As such, the path is broken into 2 separate arguments, rather than one as it should be. How do I make Visual Studio allow spaces within an argument?
For reference, launching via the command line with this command works as expected:
argtest.exe "FIRST ARGUMENT" "SECOND ARGUMENT"
launch.vs.json
{
"version": "0.2.1",
"defaults": {},
"configurations": [
{
"type": "default",
"project": "CMakeLists.txt",
"projectTarget": "argtest.exe",
"name": "argtest.exe",
"args": ["FIRST ARGUMENT", "SECOND ARGUMENT"]
}
]
}
test.c
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
int i;
for (i = 0; i < argc; i++)
printf("%d = %s\n", i, argv[i]);
return 0;
}
CMakeLists.txt
cmake_minimum_required (VERSION 2.8.8)
project (argtest)
SET( CMAKE_RUNTIME_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/ )
add_executable(argtest test.c)

Answer 1

You need to include the quotes in the args strings and escape them. For example:
{
"version": "0.2.1",
"defaults": {},
"configurations": [
{
"type": "default",
"project": "CMakeLists.txt",
"projectTarget": "argtest.exe",
"name": "argtest.exe",
"args": ["\"FIRST ARGUMENT\"", "\"SECOND ARGUMENT\""]
}
]
}

Answer 2

It is easier doing this through Visual Studio itself. To run a program with command-line arguments follow these steps:
Open the project in Visual Studio
Click on the 'Debug' tab in the menu bar.
Click on the '[NAME OF PROJECT] Properties' menu item.
A window will popup and should automatically go into the Debug menu within that window. Under the 'Start options' section enter your command-line arguments with a space between each argument.
Hope this helps.