Locating q

QHOME environment variable and kdb.qHomeDirectory setting are identical from the viewpoint of VS Code and they are used to locate the q executable for REPL.

When QHOME is set through operating system, QHOME will always be used instead of kdb.qHomeDirectory. A workspace .env file can also be used to set QHOME and other environment variables specific to the workspace.

kdb.qHomeDirectory setting is in machine scope which means it can be set differently per remote machine.

For workspace specific use case, kdb.qHomeDirectoryWorkspace which is in resource scope should be used in .vscode/settings.json and it overrides QHOME as well and will be used to launch q for the specific workspace only.

If neither qHomeDirectoryWorkspace, QHOME nor qHomeDirectory is set in any scope, the default KDB-X install location $HOME/.kx is checked first then system path is searched for a KDB-X or kdb+ installation.

Both layouts are recognised under whichever directory is used: bin/q for KDB-X and the platform folder for kdb+, such as w64/q.exe on Windows, m64/q on macOS and l64/q on Linux.

Windows

KDB-X has no native Windows build, so a native Windows REPL runs kdb+. Point QHOME or one of the kdb.qHomeDirectory settings at the installation, for example C:\q for a C:\q\w64\q.exe executable. The system path is searched as well, so a q.exe already on PATH is found without any configuration.

ctrl+c cannot interrupt a running query on Windows, it stops the process and starts a new one, which loses the state of the session. To run KDB-X on Windows, use it through the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Remote Settings

Settings for remote machine can be accessed with the following command after the remote connection is established: