Summary

This chapter presented the Visual Studio 2005 debugger. We covered setting breakpoints in code as well as setting conditions for when those breakpoints are hit. We discussed stepping through code after hitting that breakpoint. In addition, we presented tracepoints, which perform an action (such as printing a message to the output window) when a line of code is hit in the debugger. The chapter also examined the many ways you can see the data presented by the debugger, including the watch windows, visualizers, and DataTips.

The many enhancements in the Visual Studio 2005 debugger are sure to speed your overall development effort. This is a key skill to have. Just like the better you become at coding to anticipate errors and prevent them, honing your skills with the debugging tools is yet another way to unlock additional productivity.