Debugger Usage
The newsgroups give us a good idea of which debugger features are causing the most problems for our users, but it is more difficult to gauge which features our users are using the most. I am guessing Breakpoints/Watch would probably be the at the top, with Modules being one of the less frequently used. I would be interested to know from some of the users here which features they use the most. This is again an ad-hoc sampling, but if you are posting here I bet you are a power user...
How frequently do you find yourself looking at the callstack? Using the command/immediate window? The processes window?
Comments
- Anonymous
January 26, 2004
I use a debugger daily.
How frequently do you find yourself looking at the callstack?
5%
Using the command/immediate window?
50%
Breakpoints
99%
The processes window?
Almost never
Watchpoints (almost never)
Main usage is running the code to a breakpoint and then stepping through the code to see where catch statements occur. Then use the command window to look at variable values.
I probably in the minority...
My collegues use it much different than I.
Hope this helps. - Anonymous
January 26, 2004
I use pretty much only the locals/autos window, immediate window, and breakpoints. - Anonymous
January 26, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
January 27, 2004
Callstack: 25%
Immediate: 50%
Processes: Never
Breakpoints: Constantly! - Anonymous
January 27, 2004
I've only managed to get the debugger working by manually attaching each time.
Call Stack Never
Immediate 30%
Processes Rarely
Breakpoints 80%
Watch 50% - Anonymous
January 27, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
January 27, 2004
Initialy I use the breakpoint to get me to somewhere thats broken. Then I use the immediate window to query values.
I find the immediate window is not as good as it was in vb. The watch window is almost useless.
in VB I used to sue the immediate window to see what properties were available, becuse of the intelisense. This seems to only work 'sometimes' in C#.
I'd love to have more prompts in the immediate window with intelisense to tell me what I can and cannot see. - Anonymous
January 29, 2004
Hoo boy! These are some very interesting posts, I should have replied earlier but yesterday & today have been one of those days... can you believe 4 hours of meetings today?
I am really surprised that so many people use the command/immediate window so frequently. I would have expected watch/locals to be overwhelmingly more popular than the comamnd window.
I also see a few complaints & suggestions. I will try out each of these complaints over the weekend and see if these are issues we overlooked and need to fix. There is also a comment from Les that his debugger works only with attach and I have no idea how/why that should be. You would expect a simple F5 to work. Is this a problem with just one projet or each and every one of them, Les?
Thanks & regards.
Deeptanshu. - Anonymous
February 25, 2004
Callstack: Only when an unhandled exception occurs, then it's a lifesaver.
Command/Immediate: Almost never
Processes: Occasionally
Watch/Locals/Autos: Always
Breakpoints: Always - Anonymous
March 27, 2004
Hi Anonymous,
Try this link for instructions - http://www.code101.com/Code101/DisplayArticle.aspx?cid=48
Cheerio,
D.V. - Anonymous
April 10, 2004
Breakpoints: always
Call stack: almost always.
Watch: In vb6 break when expression becomes true is great
It would be a real killer if these features are around:
a) break when call stack is identical (useful when function is called from different parts of a program)
b) slow motion replay of events before a particular exception. - Anonymous
April 11, 2004
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
April 16, 2004
I use breakpoints, Watch Window, and Call Stack.
What I would really like is the ability to change the font in the watch window. It really bothers me to look at code in anything but a fixed width font. It takes me much longer to identify what I'm looking at because of this.
Another thing that annoy's me is that there doesn't seem to be a good way in the watch window to look at long formated strings (such as the OuterXml property of a XmlDocument). - Anonymous
April 19, 2004
Regarding font in watch window => you can change the font from Tools->Options->Environment->Fonts & Colours : set the font for the group "Dialogs & Tool Windows". There is no font setting for the watch window exclusively.
You should be able to view long strings via tooltips in the watch window. We have improved the string viewing in the new version which should prove to be more convenient than tooltips.
Regards,
D.V. - Anonymous
April 22, 2004
Command/Immediate: a LOT, please fix it so that assignments can be made since theres no EnC! ie, theres times when assignment statements refuse to work in both the Immediate and in the Watch windows, and even to simple properties that just directly wrap a private field.
Call stack: sometimes, when I dont have a clue why i'm at a certain spot: i wish an "expanding view" or something could be considered to show what the simple types' values were passed in
Watch: somewhat, but i dont like properties of objects being "run" even though I try to subscribe to the idea of "property access should never change object state" this idea doesnt work well in O/R mapping schemes - Anonymous
April 30, 2004
Call stack 90%
Can you guys make a window where it prints a list of all of the functions that have been called in the current debug run? It would be really helpful to be able to see which events are being raised as I step through forms code, and the only thing I know to do to help me here is to use call stack...
This causes me to struggle when dealing with WinForm UI issues. Meanwhile it's super-easy to debug my scientific algorithms. Just put it into watch & copy paste into excel to look at your vectors. - Anonymous
May 09, 2004
I have the March CTP, the IDE doesn't seem to notice when I have breaked (c/c++) and pointing the mouse at vars with macros like
#define G (*(Uz_Globs *)pG)
then when pointing mouse to "sound"
if (G.lpUserFunctions->sound != NULL)
it doesn't get the value.
Can't the preprocessor build a internal database for the debugging where is stored "what is defined where" etc, so that this information could be then used during debugging to resolve those define macros? - Anonymous
May 10, 2004
Hi Joku,
The debugger does not recognize #defines. This is "by design" because these are preprocessor statements meant for the compiler and used during compilation. If you view the expression in watch window, you will see the Expression Evaluator does not support it, which is why datatips do not show it. These are not really variables having an assigned value, the expression is simply "replaced" by the compiler.
Theoretically, I guess it could be possible to do something to add this info to the debug info file by treating the preprocessor directives as variables, but then you would end up with huge .pdb files. Since the values of preprocessor symbols do not change, you really don't need the debugger to see them and can search in the source files (VS has excellent "Find in Files" support that lets you search in entire project or solution).
Regards,
D.V. - Anonymous
May 25, 2004
Please help me with the questions below : - Anonymous
June 16, 2009
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