SDK Helpers for Debugging

Applies to: Visual Studio Visual Studio for Mac

These functions and declarations are global helper functions for implementing debug engines, expression evaluators, and symbol providers in C++.

Overview

In order for debug engines, expression evaluators, and symbol providers to be used by Visual Studio, they must be registered. This is done by setting registry subkeys and entries, otherwise known as "setting metrics." The following global functions are designed to ease the process of updating these metrics. See the section on Registry Locations to find out the layout of each registry subkey that is updated by these functions.

General Metric Functions

These are general functions used by debug engines. Specialized functions for expression evaluators and symbol providers are detailed later.

GetMetric Method

Retrieves a metric value from the registry.

HRESULT GetMetric(
   LPCWSTR pszMachine,
   LPCWSTR pszType,
   REFGUID guidSection,
   LPCWSTR pszMetric,
   DWORD * pdwValue,
   LPCWSTR pszAltRoot
);

SetMetric Method

Sets the specified metric value in the registry.

HRESULT SetMetric(
         LPCWSTR pszType,
         REFGUID guidSection,
         LPCWSTR pszMetric,
   const DWORD   dwValue,
         bool    fUserSpecific,
         LPCWSTR pszAltRoot
);

RemoveMetric Method

Removes the specified metric from the registry.

HRESULT RemoveMetric(
   LPCWSTR pszType,
   REFGUID guidSection,
   LPCWSTR pszMetric,
   LPCWSTR pszAltRoot
);

EnumMetricSections Method

Enumerates the various metric sections in the registry.

HRESULT EnumMetricSections(
   LPCWSTR pszMachine,
   LPCWSTR pszType,
   GUID *  rgguidSections,
   DWORD * pdwSize,
   LPCWSTR pszAltRoot
);

Expression Evaluator Functions

Exception Functions

Symbol Provider Functions

Enumeration Functions

Metric Definitions

These definitions can be used for predefined metric names. The names correspond to various registry keys and value names and are all defined as wide character strings: for example, extern LPCWSTR metrictypeEngine.

Registry Locations

The metrics are read from and written to the registry, specifically in the VisualStudio subkey.

[registry key]\

Software\

Microsoft\

VisualStudio\

[version root]\

[metric root]\

[metric type]\

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

Debug Engines

The following is the organization of the debug engines metrics in the registry. Engine is the metric type name for a debug engine and corresponds to [metric type] in the above registry subtree.

Engine\

[engine guid]\

CLSID = [class guid]

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

PortSupplier\

0 = [port supplier guid]

1 = [port supplier guid]

Port Suppliers

The following is the organization of the port supplier metrics in the registry. PortSupplier is the metric type name for a port supplier and corresponds to [metric type].

PortSupplier\

[port supplier guid]\

CLSID = [class guid]

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

Symbol Providers

The following is the organization of the symbol supplier metrics in the registry. SymbolProvider is the metric type name for the symbol provider and corresponds to [metric type].

SymbolProvider\

[symbol provider guid]\

file\

CLSID = [class guid]

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

metadata\

CLSID = [class guid]

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

Expression Evaluators

The following is the organization of the expression evaluator metrics in the registry. ExpressionEvaluator is the metric type name for the expression evaluator and corresponds to [metric type].

ExpressionEvaluator\

[language guid]\

[vendor guid]\

CLSID = [class guid]

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

Engine\

0 = [debug engine guid]

1 = [debug engine guid]

Expression Evaluator Extensions

The following is the organization of the expression evaluator extension metrics in the registry. EEExtensions is the metric type name for the expression evaluator extensions and corresponds to [metric type].

EEExtensions\

[extension guid]\

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

Exceptions

The following is the organization of the exceptions metrics in the registry. Exception is the metric type name for the exceptions and corresponds to [metric type].

Exception\

[debug engine guid]\

[exception types]\

[exception]\

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

[exception]\

[metric] = [metric value]

[metric] = [metric value]

Requirements

These files are located in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SDK installation directory (by default, [drive]\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 SDK\).

Header: includes\dbgmetric.h

Library: libs\ad2de.lib, libs\dbgmetric.lib

See also

• API Reference