why vscode debug doesn't recognize local #include? - c

Question

I have been stuck on this bug for a few hours now.
I wrote some code in C that uses functions and structs from another C file that I wrote. when I run the code manually (with the makefile I wrote) it runs.
the makefile:
exec: ../LineParser.c main_c_file.c
gcc -g -m32 -Wall -c ../LineParser.c -o LineParser.o
gcc -g -m32 -Wall -c main_c_file.c -o main_c_file.o
gcc -g -m32 -Wall LineParser.o main_c_file.o -o main_c_file
rm LineParser.o main_c_file.o
but when I am trying to debug it I get the error:
/dir1/dir2/task2/main_c_file.c:123: undefined reference to imported_function'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Build finished with error(s).
* The terminal process failed to launch (exit code: -1).
I tried
adding -g to the make file.
to first compile the code
and then add its full path to the program tag in the debug configuration file
{
linkid=830387
"version": "0.2.0",
"configurations": [
{
"type": "by-gdb",
"request": "launch",
"name": "Launch(gdb)",
"program": "/dir1/dir2/main_c_file",
"cwd": "${workspaceRoot}"
}
]
}
by the way I am runing this code in Linux