Auto detection of clang-format and clang-tidy in the PATH isn't working?

    > @taoran-git Doing a Reload Window should fix it -- the path is cached. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/blob/main/Extension/src/LanguageServer/settings.ts#L111 . If that doesn't fix it, can you file a new issue on the bug?

Thank you for your reply. My issue persists and is pretty much the same as https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/8520. I now suspect that auto-detection of clang-format was broken even before updating llvm to 15. Things worked fine only because the extension-bundled clang-format WAS up-to-date with the .clang-format file. After adding some clang-format-15-exclusive options to my .clang-format file, the extension-bundled formatter stop working. This is indeed expected though.

What really goes wrong is that the extension never invokes the clang-format in my $PATH.
To reassure,
echo $PATH
gives me /usr/local/opt/llvm/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Library/TeX/texbin:/Library/Apple/usr/bin:/usr/local/opt/llvm/bin:/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin

Manually setting C_Cpp.clang_format_path fixes the problem. But a cross platform solution would be really appreciated.

Originally posted by @taoran-git in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/9816#issuecomment-1290088933

Start with Extension/src/LanguageServer/settings.ts around line 111 and review the PATH caching and auto-detection behavior described in issue 8520. Reproduce the problem with clang-format and clang-tidy available in PATH, compare it with manually setting C_Cpp.clang_format_path, and confirm that detection works across platforms without requiring the explicit setting.