Visual C++ v6.0 is shipped with a very good integrated debugger, but it has even more
features then is documented in the online help files. I'll briefly describe some of these
features, so you can use them to make your own programming a little more efficient. Some
of these tips were mentioned during the European Visual C++ Developer's Conference in
January 1999 in Amsterdam (WARNING: the NoStepInto is an undocumented feature, this means:
no support, may change, may not work...!).
The AutoExp.dat file (in the \Program Files\Microsoft Visual
Studio\Common\MSDev98\Bin directory) has some very neat features that can help you tune
the debugger. This file is read when the debugger is started and looks just like an
INI-file. Both the Automatic expansion of structures and avoid stepping into particular functions are configured using this
file.
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The debugger is capable of displaying the contents of a structure (or class) in a watch
or a tooltip. For some structures, you can actually see what's inside the structure (i.e.
the CString class). For your own structures you only see three dots and that's it. Of
course you can expand these watches in the debugger, but for tooltips you're out of luck.
Fortunately, this mechanism of displaying the contents of a structure wasn't hardcoded in
the debugger, but it's done using a special section in the AutoExp.dat file. Open the file
and look for the [AutoExpand] section and you'll see how this is accomplished. The
following piece of text is extracted from this file, but is included here for reference.
AutoExpand rules use the following syntax. The equals sign (=), angle brackets
(<>), and comma are taken literally. Square brackets ([]) indicate optional items.
type=[text]<member[,format]>...
Type
Name of the type (may be followed by <*>
for template types such as the ATL types listed below).
Text
Any text.Usually the name of the member to
display, or a shorthand name for the member.
Member
Name of a member to display.
Format
Watch format specifier. One of the following:
Letter
Description
Sample
Display
d,i
Signed decimal integer
0xF000F065,d
-268373915
u
Unsigned decimal integer
0x0065,u
101
o
Unsigned octal integer
0xF065,o
0170145
x,X
Hexadecimal integer
61541,X
0X0000F065
l,h
long or short prefix for d, i, u, o, x, X
00406042,hx
0x0c22
f
Signed floating-point
3./2.,f
1.500000
e
Signed scientific-notation
3./2.,e
1.500000e+000
g
Shorter of e and f
3./2.,g
1.5
c
Single character
0x0065,c
'e'
s
Zero-terminated string
0x0012fde8,s
"Hello world"
su
Unicode string
0x007200c4,su
"Hello world"
st
String in ANSI or Unicode depending on current setting
The special format <,t> specifies the name of the most-derived type of the
object. This is especially useful with pointers or references to a base class. If there is
no rule for a class, the base classes are checked for a matching rule.
Did you also debug some code, where you had to step into some functions but you're
stepping more in CString's internal functions then in the code which you wanted to debug?
There is an (undocumented) solution to this problem and it's in the AutoExp.dat file as
well. Create a section called [ExecutionControl] and add the following line for functions
that should be treated as "atomic":
Function=NoStepInto
Avoid stepping into this specific function
Classname::Method=NoStepInto
Avoid stepping into the specific method of this class
Classname::*=NoStepInto
Avoid stepping into any of the methods of this class
The CString class is used throughout the code, so you're normally not interested in the
construction, destruction and assignments of this class. Add the following code to the
AutoExp.dat file to prevent stepping into these functions:
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