Debugging through different solutions in Visual Studio

Question

_{Tuesday, September 12, 2017 2:48 PM | 1 vote}

Currently I have solution A that contains definition of the function and solution B that references the dll using DllImport from solution A. Is there a way to debug straight through from one to the other with two instances of visual studio open (one for each solution).

Example:

Solution A:

[DllImport("proj", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]

public static extern int function(int a, int b);

Solution B:

int function (int a, int b)

{

...

...

}

All replies (3)

_{Tuesday, September 12, 2017 4:56 PM | 1 vote}

Have you tried to add the second project to Solution A, or to a copy of Solution A? (A project can be added to multiple solutions).

Also consider setting the “Enable native code debugging” option for the first project.

_{Wednesday, September 13, 2017 1:37 AM | 1 vote}

People should not say "DLL" without saying what type of DLL it is. There are many types of DLLs. Since you are using DllImport the implication is that the DLL is not a managed DLL. So you should also provide information about where it comes from. If it is a third-party DLL then you probably don't have a debug build of it. The fact that it is a separate project is not likely a problem if you are using a debug build of the DLL.

I have had to debug two projects where they were separate processes. Separate instances of VS might be needed for separate processes but a DLL being called from an exec is not separate process.

Sam Hobbs
SimpleSamples.Info

_{Thursday, September 21, 2017 6:20 AM}

Hi Shiva,

"You can only have one debugger debugging a process at once. So that means you only need one instance of Visual Studio open.

However, you can just open the .cpp/.cs/whatever file from Solution B into Solution A's copy of Visual Studio and set breakpoints. It'll still work even though those files aren't actually part of the solution."

Reference thread:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2436237/debugging-through-different-solutions-in-visual-studio

Best regards,

Fletcher

MSDN Community Support
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