Five Tools You Can Use Beyond Visual Studio

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.NET Debugging
Five Tools You Can Use Beyond Visual Studio
Alan Cobb - Consultantwww.alancobb.com
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Outline
Why should you care?Details of five tools
Break
Use tools on example bugs
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Question
Why should you care?
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Question
Are there any major drawbacksto .NET development?
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One .NET drawback
Initial coding easier,but debugging can be
harder.
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Layer diagram
Your .NET app
.NET classes and CLR
Windows OS
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Angry Customer Frustrated Developer

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Bug Found Everybody Is Happy

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About Alan Cobb
Consultant - www.alancobb.com - Programming on
Microsoft platforms since DOS era-
C/C, MFC, now .NET - Mixture system and
apps
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Five Tools in Detail
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Five .NET Debugging Tools
Frequent Use - DebugView - FileMon -
Process Explorer
Heavy Duty - ADPlus - WinDbg SOS
Extension
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Frequent Use Tools
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Frequent Use Tools
Frequent Use - DebugView - FileMon -
Process Explorer
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Frequent Use Tools

• Where to get them?
• Free download fromwww.sysinternals.com

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Download from SysInternals.com
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Book from author of SysInternals tools
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DebugView
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DebugView
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DebugView
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DebugView
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Additional material - Hidden

• High end logging options
• Enterprise Librarys Logging and Instrumentation
  Application Block
• EIF (Enterprise Instrumentation
  Framework)Superceeded by Enterprise
  LibrarySays why here http//msdn.microsoft.com/
  vstudio/enterprise/EIF/
• Uses of DebugView
• BizTalk
• http//biztalkug.com/Newsgroups/orchestration/8047
  1.aspx
• Supports idea that normally people think of
  Trace.WriteLine needed VS to view.

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FileMon
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FileMon
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FileMon
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FileMon - ltHiddengt
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FileMon
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FileMon
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FileMon
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FileMon - ltHiddengt
ltMore usesgt
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Process Explorer
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Process Explorer

• How useful for .NET developer?

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Reviewing Windows Task Manager
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Task Manager shows CPU usage
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Process Explorer Listing OS handles
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Process Explorer - ltHiddengt
ltHow use handle list?gt
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Process Explorer Find DLL
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Sample SimpleHelloWorld.exe
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.NET programs highlighted yellow
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Assemblies-DLLs Used
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Assembly-DLL Descriptions
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VS Debuggers Module List
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Heavy Duty Tools
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Five .NET Debugging Tools
Frequent Use - DebugView - FileMon -
Process Explorer
Heavy Duty - ADPlus - WinDbg SOS
Extension
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Debugging Tools for Windows

• Where to get them?
• Free from Microsoft
• Download from
• http//www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/Debugging/
  default.mspx
• Or Google for WinDbg download

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Debugging Tools for Windows Home page
http//www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/Debugging/d
efault.mspx
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ADPlus and WinDbg

• How useful to .NET apps developers?

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Production Debugging

• After released to customer
• Usually no Visual Studio

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Production Debugging ltHiddengt

• ltAdditional detailgt

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Using ADPlus and WinDbg

• Snapshot a dump file with ADPlus
• Analyze dump file with WinDbg SOS

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Production Debugging ltHiddengt

• ltAdditional detailgt

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DTFW Relationships
ADPlus.VBS (debugger control script)
Debugger user
interfaces
WinDbg.EXE
CDB.EXE
Debugger
DLLs
Main debugger DLLs
Understands managed code SOS.DLL
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Example Bug Diagnosis
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Types of Bugs

• - Crash / Exception
• Hang
• Memory Leak
• Other

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Bug Demo App
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Crash in Main Thread
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Dump File
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WinDbg Viewing Dump File
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Stack Trace with WinDbg
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Conclusion
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Conclusion
Questions?
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Review
Review - .NET debugging can be harder -
One solution Learn tools Skills - Get
good stack trace - Create use dump file
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Angry Customer Frustrated Developer

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Bug Found Everybody Is Happy

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Conclusion
.NET debugging in the future?
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Conclusion
- Summary handout - Presentation evaluation
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- End -
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