Transcript Debugging
DEV339 Best Practices for Debugging Visual Studio .NET Applications Keith Pleas Architect, Guided Design [email protected] Overview About debugging What's new in Visual Studio .NET 2003 Debugging in Visual Studio .NET Client applications Web applications SQL Server database objects Tracing Additional Debuggers 2 Types of “Bugs” Inconsistent User Interfaces Un-met expectations Poor performance Crashes Data corruption 3 Debugging: A Methodology by John Robbins, Wintellect 4 Duplicate the bug Describe the bug Always assume that the bug is yours Divide and Conquer Think creatively Leverage tools Start heavy debugging Verify that the bug is fixed Learn and share Debugging Process Tracking & catagorization Version control Change control Daily builds Unit tests Smoke tests 5 Visual Studio .NET Errors Errors versus Warnings For VB, on for manual compiles by default Listed for C#, grovel for VB Attributes DebuggerStepThroughAttrribute Opposite of what you’d think You _can_ set breakpoints DebuggerHiddenAttribute 6 Visual Studio .NET 2003 What’s New in the Debugger Viewing C# unhandled exceptions Better collection display in the debugger (ArrayList, HashTable) Alphabetically sorted view of members IntelliSense in the Immediate window Filtered Call Stack view 7 Visual Studio .NET 2003 What’s New in the Debugger Reload symbols from the Call Stack window Automatic stepping into Web Services Symbol server support Debugging managed dumps using Son of Strike (SOS.dll) NTSD extension 8 Cool Tip Debugging a DataSet made easier! Question: How do you debug a DataSet today? REPEAT Click, Expand, Scroll UNTIL ( Index Finger Becomes Sore ) Hard to determine what you’re looking at Hint: Use the Immediate window to make life a little easier 9 Debugging .NET EXEs Two ways to debug a .NET EXE Start (F5) Manually attach to the EXE using the Processes dialog In addition, you can customize F5 to: Debug an application remotely Debug an URL instead of your project Debug another program instead of your project 10 demo Customizing <F5> 11 Cool Tip Expand your types automatically! Text file in Common7\Packages\Debugger directory mcee_cs.dat for C# mcee_mc.dat for MC++ 12 Allows immediate display of custom types in Watch, QuickWatch, DataTips, etc. See actual file for documentation Must restart VS Debugging .NET DLLs Cannot debug DLLs directly Two ways to debug a DLL 1. 2. 13 Specify host process in project properties Manually attach demo Debugging a DLL 14 Debugging XML Web Services You can debug an XML Web Service: On its own Called from a ASP.NET Web Form Called from a client application That is already running 15 demo Debugging XML Web Services 16 SQL Server Debugging Two ways 1. Use Server Explorer Debug stored procedures and functions 2. Call procedure from application Set breakpoint Enable SQL debugging 17 demo Debugging SQL Stored Procedures 18 JIT debugging “Just In Time” (JIT) Debugging Allows you to debug crashes (exceptions) when application is not running under the debugger Default is off for Windows Forms <configuration> <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" /> </configuration> Can select which debugger to attach with 19 Testing Your ASP.NET Application Using Different Browsers VS always uses IE when debugging an ASP.NET application What if you want to debug using other browsers? 20 demo Testing ASP.NET Web Forms 21 Remote Debugging ASP.NET Remote Debugging Local Machine 1. 2. 22 3. Remote machine Setup debug components on remote machine Add user to Debugger Users group Typically user needs to be admin “Troubleshooting: How do I debug an ASP.NET app on my machine?” Troubleshooting F5 Turn debugging on in web.config file <compilation debug=“true”/> Make sure ASP.NET debugging is turned on in your project properties When aspnet_wp.exe runs as SYSTEM, the user debugging it must be an administrator. Your web application must use Integrated Windows Authentication. 23 Client Instrumentation (1) System.Diagnostics Instrumentation support Debug class Trace class Use Debug during development Use Trace in deployed apps 24 Client Instrumentation (2) Conditionally compiled methods Define these constants via: Project settings Command line In code 25 Client Instrumentation (3) Use switch in code static BooleanSwitch switch = new BooleanSwitch(“TraceSample”, “Tracer”); … Trace.WriteLineIf(switch.Enabled, “Trace is running”) Change Application configuration file: Enables switch Sets trace level 26 Client Instrumentation (4) Trace Listeners Receive trace messages Three predefined listeners DefaultTraceListener EventLogTraceListener TextWriterTraceListener 27 demo Tracing in Windows Applications 28 Tracing ASP.NET Use the Trace property Trace.Warn Trace.Write Two types: Page level trace <%@ Page Trace=“true”%> Application tracing Web.config change Read Trace.axd 29 demo Tracing in ASP.NET 30 Additional Debuggers GUI Debugger Console Debugger Deployment considerations 31 Summary Debugging client applications Debugging Web applications Debugging SQL Server Tracing 32 Ask The Experts Get Your Questions Answered 13:00 to 15:00 Thursday 3 July 33 Community Resources Community Resources http://www.microsoft.com/communities/default.mspx Most Valuable Professional (MVP) http://www.mvp.support.microsoft.com/ Newsgroups Converse online with Microsoft Newsgroups, including Worldwide http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx User Groups Meet and learn with your peers http://www.microsoft.com/communities/usergroups/default.mspx 34 Suggested Reading And Resources The tools you need to put technology to work! TITLE Debugging Applications for Microsoft® .NET and Microsoft Windows®: 0-7356-1536-5 Available Today Microsoft Press books are 20% off at the TechEd Bookstore 35 Also buy any TWO Microsoft Press books and get a FREE T-Shirt evaluations 36 37 © 2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This presentation is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.