Visual Studio Hacks

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Chapter 5, Debugging

#38 Customize Visual Studio’s Reaction to Exceptions

HACK

HACK

#38

Customize Visual Studio’s Reaction to

Exceptions Hack #38

Exceptions are a sometimes-frustrating part of debugging and developing.

You can configure Visual Studio to deal differently with certain exceptions.

When debugging a program in Visual Studio, a number of situations may

cause the debugger to enter break mode. When the debugger enters break

mode, program execution is suspended, allowing you—the developer—the

opportunity to examine and change the program variables. With Visual Stu-

dio 2005, you can even alter the program’s underlying source code when in

break mode and have the program continue with the edited source.

A common way that break mode is entered is through breakpoints

[Hack #36].

Another way that break mode is regularly entered is when an exception is

raised that is not handled by your application. Any exception that bubbles

up out of your user code will cause the Visual Studio debugger to display

information about the exception. While you will likely always want to be

notified of an unhandled exception when debugging, you may want to break

when an exception is thrown, regardless of whether or not it’s handled.

Visual Studio can be easily customized to break immediately when a particu-

lar type of exception is thrown.

Use the Exceptions Dialog Box

To customize Visual Studio’s behavior when encountering ...