Code Debugging Content in Community

Eric Battalio

A few days ago, we called out some of the great debugging topics on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Library. Here are some excellent resources outside of the MSDN Library (in no particular order except the last one):

• Simultaneously debugging script and managed/native code in Windows 8 (Kraig Brockschmidt) shares how to debug managed/native code at the same time using two instances of Visual Studio. Check out his blog for tips on Microsoft Store certification, quick start guides, and more.
• JavaScript/Native Interop Debugging in Visual Studio 2013 (Microsoft ALM blog, Patrick Nelson) describes native with script debugging available in Visual Studio 2013. He provides a concrete example and shares some caveats with workaround used in VS2012.
• Debuggers and Debugging Techniques (Cprogramming.com) has a good survey of debugging by different tool/platform including a six-part series on Visual Studio debugging (Patrick Mancier).
• 10+ powerful debugging tricks with Visual Studio (CodeProject, Ivan Shcherbakov) is a highly-rated article that summarizes ten debugging tricks and techniques that can save you a lot of time when using Visual Studio.
• 10 More Visual Studio Debugging Tips for Native Development (CodeProject, Microsoft C++ MVP Marius Bancila) is a follow-up to the above focusing on native code. Spoiler: watch a range of values inside an array using the syntax (array + <offset>), <count> to watch a particular range of <count> elements starting at the <offset> position.
• C++ Debugging (gamedev.net, null_pointer) summaries some of your debugging code choices including the tongue-in-cheek “do nothing”. The article is ancient in internet time (2001) but a good read. A quick search for “debugging” yields many articles focusing on graphics and other game developer topics.
• Cheating a bit here, but a few articles mention WinDbg and point back to different articles on MSDN. To explore using WinDbg, start at the top with Debugging Using WinDbg. If you want a quick-start guide, check out WindDbg Quickstart Guide (Riham Selim) in multiple parts.
• MFC Tips (Ed Nafziger) is a tip repository for all things MFC. Debugging tips include Calling UpdateData in OnTimer may cause debug assertion failed or crash. If you are using MFC, take a look.
• And don’t forget the Visual C++ Team Blog right here at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog! Did you read Debugger Type Visualizers for C++ in Visual Studio 2012 (Cagri Aslan)? Of course you did!

If you know of additional resources, add them to the comments (or send them to me, ebattali@microsoft.com) and I will update the article. Thanks!

Eric Battalio

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