VS Tips (Continuously updated)

• Special commands in Immediate/Watch windows
  • c# temp variables defined in Immediate Window

input “int tempVar = 0;” in the immediate window, then type $temp or @temp in Watch window, see what happens. Can be helpful combined with the usage of Conditional Breakpoints.

VS can even create an object in immediate window, like Something s = new Something();

• Time-measurement feature by conditional breakpoint

set a trace point, and change the statement as below:

{@clk}, {@clk=0}, $FUNCTION

on my 64-bit win7, time resolution is 10-6 second

see what happens

• control var’s display suffix
  • var,h: in watch window shows hex value
  • var,nq: show string without escaped quotes, helpful when showing “\””
  • var,ac: force to evaluate the expression even if “implicit expression evaluation” is disabled in debug-general setting. May be helpful to watch some variables which has nasty side effect when auto evaluate expression, like properties
• watch objects out of scope: “Make Object Id”, then watch by “1#”, “2#”, etc. Even if the object is being GCed.
• pseudo-vars in watch windows:
  • $exception
  • $user
• Visualizer in watch window
  • for c#:
    • MyDocument\Visual Studio 2008\Visualizer\autoexp.cs and autoexp.dll
    • write your own visualizer plug-in
    • customize debugdisplay attribute in c# classes
  • for native c++: c:\program files(x86)\visual studio 2008\common7\packages\debugger\autoexp.dat
• Execute SOS from immediate window

.load sos

note: only 32bit mixed debugging mode supports this

• Debugger Behavior
  • Set Breakpoint at any system function

type “{,,user32.dll}_SendMessageA@16” in the New breakpoint window

some function has different symbol name, like: LockWindowUpdate

{,,user32.dll}_NtUserLockWindowUpdate@4 should be used.

• Why Edit&Continue not working for my project?

refer to below link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms164927%28v=VS.80%29.aspx

some common cases when E&C not available are:

mixed debugging

64-bit CLR

attached by debugger and not started from debugger

• Why my VS cannot detach from the target

when attaching to the target, remember to choose Managed only mode, not mixed mode

• Misc
  • Dump
    • VS-generated minidump has no handle info, so not good for multiple thread deadlock troubleshooting