When building a C# application with Visual Studio 2008, is it possible to set a different output filename per configuration?
e.g.
MyApp_Debug.exe
MyApp_Release.exe
I tried a post-build step to rename the file by appending the current configuration, but that seems a scrappy approach. Plus it meant that Visual Studio could no longer find the file when pressing F5 to start debugging.
You can achieve this by editing your project file by hand. Locate the <AssemblyName> node and add a conditional attribute to it:
<AssemblyName Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Debug'">MyApp_Debug.exe</AssemblyName>
<AssemblyName Condition="'$(Configuration)'=='Release'">MyApp_Release.exe</AssemblyName>
You'll have to duplicate it also to add another conditional attribute for the release version.
Whilst it is possible, it may cause problems. There is an AssemblyConfiguration attribute that can be applied to your assembly. In AssemblyInfo.cs, put:
#if DEBUG
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("Debug")]
#else
[assembly: AssemblyConfiguration("Release")]
#endif
This will add a property to your compiled assembly that will tell you which build configuration your application was built using.
As adrianbanks mentioned, you can edit your .csproj file by hand to accomplish this.
I would, however reccomend the simpler form of:
<AssemblyName>MyApp_$(Configuration).exe</AssemblyName>
If you ever edit the properties of this project however, this change will very likely be lost. It's something you will have to manually stay on top of, as it's not going to be a supported setup.
To manually edit your project definition, right click the project in Visual Studio, and select "Unload", then right click the unloaded project, and select "Edit" and it will open the XML definition for you.
I'm sure there is, however in my experience having different filenames for debug / release configurations is a bad idea as it can cause all sorts of problems (very much like the issue VS has when it tries to execute the renamed app)
Why not simply indicate whether or not its debug / release in the Assembly attributes (for example in the comments)
Related
I have solution with 3 projects. Project one - Library. Project two - Service (asmx). Project three - Test. In my service I have two config transform: PRODUCTION and TEST. They are equals, but name of databases is different. My solution:
If I Debug Test with PRODUCTION.config then all right - my breakpoints is active. If I Debug Test with TEST.config then bad. I get this:
What could be the problem? Sorry for my English.
Fixing:
Right mouse click your project
Select Properties
Select the Build tab
Make sure Define DEBUG constant and Define TRACE constant are
checked
Click the Advanced button at the bottom of the Build tabpage
Make sure that Debug Info: is set to Full
Click OK and save changes
Clean solution and rebuild the project
Link to source Fixing “The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document.”.
(step 6 generates the .pdb files, these are the debugging symbols)
For more information see next screenshots. Build settings:
Advanced settings of build:
Checked for Microsoft Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 and Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2017.
I had similar issue and I did the following simply:
Go to Debug => Options => General => Remove the check mark for "Enable Just My Code"
This worked for me.
Another reason this can happen is that if you are sharing multiple projects between solutions and you have set up custom build configurations then simply changing from release to debug on the toolbar (or other shortcuts) can mess up the active build configuration and create all sorts of random consequences.
Make sure that Solution > Properties > Active Config is what you expect ('Mixed' is usually bad) and use Solution > Configuration Manager if in doubt.
I forgot again and the tactics popular on the intertubes did not, of course, work so this is partly a note to self...
Require source files to exactly match the original version
This has to be unchecked.
As a future reference, the same issue can happen when you have the same assembly both in GAC and bin\Debug folder. Just deleting the assembly from the GAC and it works again.
If you're doing multiple startup projects, make sure you have all your services your want to debug set to Start
First try rebuilding your project by right mouse click the project > Rebuild If that doesn't work, try a clean of the project (right mouse click on the project > clean)
I had similar issue and I did the following:
Debug=>Options=>General => Remove the check mark for "Enable Just My Code"
This worked for my vs
Try adding or updating your .csproj file with the tag <DebugType>full</DebugType> inside <PropertyGroup>. This solved my problem.
I am using a solution with several projects (Visual Studio 2015).
In my case, the problem was solved when I realized that one of the projects was being defined with another URL in: Project properties - Web - Servers - Project Url.
After changing to use the same URL as the other projects, the problem was solved.
Image
I am using a solution with several projects (Visual Studio 2015).
I tried several approach. This one worked for me.
In my case, the problem was solved when I realized that one of the projects was being defined with another URL in: Project properties - Web - Servers - Project Url.
After changing to use the same URL as the other projects, the problem was solved.
Image
In my case the project under which the debug breakpoints were not getting hit was also referenced by another solution which was at the time running.
When I stopped that solution the breakpoints started hitting.
If the library happens to be c++ with a C# consumer project actually doing the calling into it, you need to go to Properties -> Enable Native Debugging in the consumer project, and make sure this box is checked.
This can happen if you haven't set the current project as the startup project. In the solution explorer navigate to your project right click and select set as startup project.
When a new C# project is created, two build configurations are added to the respective csproj file - Debug and Release.
My problem is that the Release build configuration does not include the full debug information by default. I know the default is reasonable for the Release build, but in my particular case I want to change it to full debug info.
Is it possible to tweak the Visual Studio 2012 in such a way that new projects have their Release build with full debug info?
There is a very ugly way to do it:
The default project templates are stored in $(VSINSTALLDIR)\Common7\IDE\ProjectTemplates\CSharp\Windows\1033\ and you can modify them, with appropriate administrator permissions, to include whatever you'd like. This includes modifying the defaults for the debug configuration to remove the DEBUG define and to set the 'optimize' flag.
Note that making this kind of modification is global and will affect all new projects for all users on the machine. It's probably not a great idea, and I'd strongly suggest just remembering to adjust the properties of new projects as you need to, or to create a custom template.
It's ugly, but it seems to work fine in my cursory tests.
There is a solution for C++ projects, however I am afraid it is not applicable to C#:
Use a Property Manager (View / Property Manager). You can edit a property sheet called Microsoft.Cpp.Win32.user. This property sheet is used by all projects (both Debug and Release configurations). If you set your debugging requirements there, you will do no harm do Debug, as it already includes it anyway and cause Release to include it as you want.
I used to be able to debug using Visual C# Express 2010 with no problem before. However, since I've opened my project using MonoDevelop (to port it under MacOS), I can't seem to be able to debug anymore.
The exact error message is available below:
A lot of people says to go in the configuration manager, which I'm familiar with, however, I can't seem to find it in the Express version.
Since you didn't have this issue prior to opening in Monodevelop, it more than likely changed something within the solution and/or project files. There are a number of posts on stackoverflow...
stackoverflow: no symbols
stackoverflow: no symbols when crossing module boundries
(From Răzvan Panda comment on the question)
... that talk about missing symbols. However, based on the information provided about monodevelop, I'd venture to guess that the IDE changed something within the solution and/or project files.
If your solution is under source control and you don't see any differences in these files, let me know. Otherwise, you could create a new blank solution/project file (from Visual C# Express 2010) and re-add all your files to it to get the default settings back and see if that resolves your issue.
EDIT: Also, keep in mind that there are ".user" files that I guess "might" have an effect on build/debugging configurations. If re-adding your files to blank solution/project files doesn't work make sure all the "extra" files like ".user" are not in the directory. Usually files like ".csproj.user", and ".suo". I've never had an issue deleting these they store local configuration changes that are not usually checked into source control.
I had same problem with Symbols when I added some dll to my project so what I did was to manually adding them. you can try going to tools > option > Debugging > Symbols and from there you can add the file root (in this case monoDevelop) and it automatically looks for all .pdb files and adds them to your environment. After rebuild it should be Okay.
Cheers
As George Duckett said:
Re. configuration manager, enable expert settings first. Tools->Settings->ExpertSettings. Then find it under Build->ConfigurationManager
Then changed it to Debug.
This is happening to me very often. When I am working in Visual Studio 2010 and say I make a code change, then build... Both my existing breakpoints become disabled / and or cannot be set and I also cannot set new breakpoints. Does anyone have a solution for this? It is very annoying. So far the only way I have been able to get around this is to restart Visual Studio which can take 5 to 8 minutes to reindex everything or to try rebuilding individual projects in my solution. My solution consists of several DLLs which make up the entire program.
Check that you have the dependencies set correctly in your projects. I know my breakpoints will become disabled if the code is "out of date". If you don't have the dependencies set up right, then when the updated code is rebuilt it will not rebuild all of the related code which will then leave those modules "out of date".
Since this is VS 2010, the dependencies are on the project not on the solution (you can add solution dependencies, but project dependencies will carry over into a new solution so it is the better way to go when possible).
This issue is caused when you having your Configuration Manager settings set to Release rather than Debug.
In Visual Studios select Build from the menu, then Configuration Manager.
In the next dialog select your project, then locate the drop down menu near the top left corner titled "Active solution configuration:" Make sure it is set to Debug.
That should fix the problem.
As it turns out the post.build file contained numerous conditions for whether or not it should copy several DLLs to a target directory... Since I didn't have time to pick through the xml for these actions I just used a bash script to copy the files after building. No need to get complicated... Otherwise, the formal solution involves setting conditions for allowing the DLLs to be overwritten/copied after compile or not.
I find the Visual Studio post.build file concept a little excessive since in the end it will make little difference whether a dll is overwritten with a freshly compiled version, yet, if you make code changes, compile, and it doesn't copy to the target directory you end up running your app with an out of date DLL and you are not testing with the recent code change..! Others have even implemented the post.build file complete with xml and goto statements...! Leave it to Microsoft to complicate the build & debug process...
Alternatively, if your code is under version control start afresh by checking out the head revision, do another clean and rebuild and start debugging again.
This for whatever reason enabled me to insert breakpoints in my VS 2010 C# project once again, whereas no amount of fannying around with properties, configurations etc got rid of my phantom breakpoint problem.
The best solution I found for this was to quit my Windows job and get another job as a Mac Developer where we use Xcode.! What a huge difference.! I sure haven't seen that breakpoints problem again.!
I'm currently trying to find out why my InjectableAttributes never get to the filter part.
Therefor I linked in the source project directly so I could easily put breakpoints etc.
When I build however I get the following message:
The following module was built either with optimizations enabled or without debug information:
C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files\root\[a bunch of randomly named directories]\assembly\[more random names]\MvcTurbine.Web.DLL]
To debug this module, change its project build configuration to Debug mode. To suppress this message, disable the 'Warn if no user code on launch' debugger option.
I checked the project's properties. It's configuration is set to "Active(Debug)" and the "Optimize code" check box is unchecked.
UPDATE
I checked again if I didn't by accident include the file rather then the project, but the references seem correct.
Just to be sure I also removed all existing bins so that all libraries are definitely rebuild somewhere, but to no avail.
UPDATE
In the advanced Build window the Debug output is set to Full and all options are identical to projects that are building debug info.
The config manager shows that the project is being built and has the exact same settings as all the other options.
UPDATE
In the Debug->Windows-Modules window the symbol status for the turbine library is PDB file does not match image I removed all corresponding pdb files on my entire system to make sure it gets re-generated, but to no avail.
To make sure I also searched for the dll on my entire system and removed them. Nothing.
What can be preventing VS from creating debug information?
I've just experienced the same problem this morning, using VS2010. I solved it by deleting all the build artefacts, e.g. executables, libraries, PDBs, etc. This was in \bin\Debug, \bin\Release, \obj\Debug, and \obj\Release (including sub-folders). Then I recompiled the debug configuration, and was back in business.
Check that debug info is being generated for the project. You can do this by opening the Build tab on the Project Properties page and clicking the "Advanced..." button. Check the "Debug Info" setting. See this MSDN article for an explanation of what each option means.
If that doesn't solve it, check that the MvcTurbine project is actually being built (Build -> Configuration Manager).
It sounds like you've referenced the MvcTurbine.Web.DLL file rather than the MvcTurbine project. Try removing the reference and re-adding it as a project reference.
Update Are you sure the DLL isn't coming from the GAC? Do Debug->Windows->Modules when the app is running and check the Path column.