Visual Studio Hacks

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Chapter 5, Debugging

#41 Debug a Running Process

HACK

You will almost always want to select Common Language Runtime in the

list of process types to debug. If you are debugging client-side script and

attaching to Internet Explorer, select Script as well. Next, select OK and

close the Processes dialog. Your IDE is now connected to the process you

selected. You can set breakpoints, watch variables, and participate in any

normal debugging task. If the code is in a loop, the Debug

➝ Break All

option will stop the application wherever the current execution point is. You

can then examine the call stack and variables and determine what may be

broken.

Debug ASP.NET Applications Quickly

For those writing ASP.NET applications, the world is even simpler. You will

always be attaching to the same process, the ASP.NET worker process. Sim-

ply open the Debug

➝ Processes dialog and find the aspnet_wp.exe (or

w3wp.exe on Windows Server 2003) process as shown in Figure 5-28.

It’s always the same for all ASP.NET applications, since all ASP.NET appli-

cations run inside the ASP.NET worker process as opposed to individual

processes.

Figure 5-27. Attach to process dialog

Figure 5-28. Select aspnet_wp.exe for debugging