Bug Babble

Back during the PDC for Whidbey I wrote a post about Creating a Simple Addin . Recently I was looking to update it and found a horrible bug in it. First, here is the corrected code: public void OnConnection( object application, ext_ConnectMode connectMode...

When you are debugging an application with multiple threads it can be handy to have a better name than just the thread id. This is simple to do in managed code. There is a property on the Thread object that you can set. It is also possible to do this...

Mike Stall has a great post that, for a debugger dev, is the moral equivalent of sticking a fork in a toaster. The basic problem he addresses is that once you are stopped in the debugger the UI for your application will no longer paint. What if you need...

Certain metadata attributes modify the stepping, breakpoint, and callstack behavior of the VS managed Debugger. This is useful if you are creating an interpreter, language runtime, or a tool that modifies the code in a managed assembly. There are three...

I first ran into netmodules before VS 2002 was shipped. The netmodule gave me precisely what I asked for, without actually solving my problem. I wanted to use multiple languages (C#, and C++ /clr) in a single assembly. It turns out a single assembly can...

Visual Studio is a big tool. It's easy to miss some useful features. Hopefully t he XSLT debugger won't get missed. If you want to learn how to use XSLT debugging take a look at Neetu Rajpal's msdn article Introducing Xml tools in VS 2005 . Below you...

Pascal writes about the joy of x64 Windows XP, and some drawbacks. One drawback is no Edit and Continue using the 64 bit CLR. You can, however, use E&C against the 32 bit CLR on a x64 machine. Here's how you do it: You need to compile your managed...

Enhanced datatips are my favorite new debugger feature. However, sometimes you want to see underneath the tip without losing your spot. Fortunately, JimGries thought of that. You can make the DataTip transparent by pressing the ctrl key or middle mouse...

I won the guess the murderer contest. Shai and I compete to guess who the real murderer is on Law and Order Criminal Intent. Last night we watched Sunday's two hour show. It's a toss up who wins, but one of us always gets it by two thirds of the way through...

I've found myself adding a timer to each of the unit test frameworks I use so I can see how long my tests take. I am not trying to do anything complex. I just want to be aware of the perf. The same way pass and fail are visible, 1ms vs 90ms is visible...

At least, it is a bug in VC8. That check won't happen. Reading Larry Osterman's recent posts "What's wrong with this code, part 15" and the answers , reminded me this behavior changed in VC8. If you check the result of new in code compiled with VC8, your...

Of course, there is only one answer to whether tabs should be allowed in a source file. The utility of one is just so obvious I'll simply avoid commenting on it. :-) If you must wander from sources written with one convention to those written in...

The VS debugger allows two types of breakpoints. There are location breakpoints and data breakpoints. Each has lots of bells and whistles. However, sometimes people confuse a Location bp with a condition, for a data bp. That's unfortunate because a data...

A coworker mentioned Func Eval sounds like "Funky-val". Stopping at a breakpoint in the middle of a function evaluation could be considered funky. It is also useful. VS Whidbey allows stopping at a BP or Exception during a function evaluation in...

In the summer of '94 I sketched a design for my ideal 'mp3' player. I didn't spec the compression format. If I had, it would have been called a 'bit' player back then. I wanted a walkman replacement. However, the feature I most craved was understandable...

The VS debugger has a history of tiny but useful features hidden in the expression evaluator. These features are like the yellow shirted ensign in star trek. They are useful, but unknown and expendable. Developer's learn about them by attending a Power...

Jeff Atwood argues that the Login dialog should infer the username from the password: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000413.html . That reminded me that many user's of XP home don't have a password, which is even simpler. If you are cringing...

Winning the award for the least understandable UI metaphor: the ability to view the environment variables in the target when native debugging. This is yet another tiny undocumented feature of the native expression evaluator in VS. $env falls under the...

Shai is an artist in crunch mode, so I was a lone bachelor at the Dance Underground last night. Lindy Hop is my Performance-Art-Sport relaxation. Simple basics with a tentative newcomer, or stanzas of movement with a confident pro, are a joy after a long...

Knowing just enough assembly is a really powerful aid in Debugging. These are short articles that hit the sweet spot of enough information to be very useful, but not so much that it is a chore to learn: Matt's Just Enough Assembly Language to Get...

This feature is unsupported. It is undocumented. If you call help desk about it nice people will say “huh?” If it breaks, people will nod knowingly and say “I told you so”. In later versions it may simply disappear. It could decay right now as I speak...

OneNote's Note Flags feature rocks. However, after I started using them I ran into a funny, subtle bug. My Note flag customizations never stayed around after OneNote shutdown. All two times I restarted OneNote I had to customize the Note Flags again....

Using Edit and Continue to fix a bug is handy, but don't wait until you've found the bug to start editing. One powerful technique is to use E&C when you are still trying to find the problem. Edit and Continue allows you to make any conditional bp...

I was dreaming last night that Shai and I were cleaning an old apartment, when a hockey puck sized bug crawled onto Shai's hand. In real life there would have been screaming. In the dream she lifted it up so we could both look at it. I am not an entomologist...

I've never read a book by my favorite writer. Joss Whedon created the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. Now, he's created the movie Serenity. Orson Scott Card (also not bad in the writing department) says Serenity is the best sci...