Debugger Tips and Tricks for .Net developers with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017

1. saturday 2018
DEBUGGER TIPS AND TRICKS FOR .NET
DEVELOPERS WITH MICROSOFT VISUAL
STUDIO 2017
Mirco Vanini
#vssatpn

2. INTRO
“Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in
the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how
will you ever debug it?”
Brian Kernighan, Computer Scientist
“As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't
as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be
discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large
part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my
own programs.”
Sir Maurice Wilkes, Computer Scientist

3. DEMO
Project Properties
Launch Options
Start with Stepping
Return Values
Set Next
Statement
Step Into Specific
Run to Cursor
Edit and Continue
Step Out

4. PERFTIPS
Quickly measure time between breaks
Excludes major debugger related overhead
Time stopped under the debugger (e.g. stopped at a breakpoint)
Symbol loading
Etc.
Best suited for order of magnitude measurements
Greatest accuracy on CLR 4.6 and Windows 10
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2014/08/18/perftips-performance-information-at-a-glance-while-
debugging-with-visual-studio.aspx

5. DEMO
Debugger.IsAttached
Debugger.Break()
Visualizers (6)
Peek Definition
DebuggerDisplay
DataTips
> Transparency
> Pinning
> Floating
> Comments
Make Object ID
Add Watch From
Watch

6. DEMO
Conditional
Breakpoints
Hit Count Breakpoints
Lambda Debugging
Immediate Window
Debug -> Start New
Instance
Multiple Project
Launch
Restart
TracePoints
Edit Variable Value

7. DEMO
Exception Settings
Call Stack window
> Async
> Show Parameter
Values
> Show External Code
Full Screen mode
Tasks window

8. DEMO
UI Debugging Tools for XAML
Inspect the live visual tree while
debugging
> Updates in real time
> Jump to source
Live property explorer
> See any element’s properties in real
time
Selection by clicking on the app

9. DEMO
Diagnostic Tools window
Memory and CPU graphs
Memory tooling
Debugger break event history
Output window content*
IntelliTrace events*
*Enterprise SKU only

10. WHO I AM
Mirco Vanini
Microsoft® MVP Windows Development
AllSeen Alliance - AllJoyn® Ambassador
Open Connectivity Foundation - OCF® Ambassador
www.proxsoft.it
info@proxsoft.it
@MircoVanini