Auto-attaching to aspnet_wp.exe
Dennis van der Stelt asked me how to debug CSModules without using the Community Server SDK. Ok, so here’s how I debug my modules.
First I set the output directory of my projects to CS’ bin folder. To debug the module, I attach the debugger manually to ASP.NET worker process, aspnet_wp.exe. However, that’s not very ergonomic, because you have to go to Debug → Attach To Process, select aspnet_wp.exe (fortunately, processes are sorted by their name) and click OK.
However, after a while that gets really annoying.
Therefore I searched for a simpler solution, e.g. an add-in. I stumbled over this nice and short macro, published by Roy Osherove (who else? [;)]):
This was on the win-tech-off-topic mailing list:
A macro to automatically attach to aspnet_wp.exe, written by Kevin Dente can save lots of clicking around time:
Sub AttachAspNet() Dim process As EnvDTE.Process If Not (DTE.Debugger.DebuggedProcesses Is Nothing) Then For Each process In DTE.Debugger.DebuggedProcesses If (process.Name.IndexOf("aspnet\_wp.exe") \<\> -1) Then Exit Sub End If Next End If For Each process In DTE.Debugger.LocalProcesses If (process.Name.IndexOf("aspnet\_wp.exe") \<\> -1) Then process.Attach() Exit Sub End If Next End SubUnfortunately, it’s not perfect. Process.Attach doesn’t let you specify the program type (CLR, Script, native, etc). I think that it uses whatever your last selection was in the UI. But don’t quote me on that, it’s been a while.
I added the macro to a toolbar, so debugging my modules is only one click far. [:)]
Comments
J-O Eriksson
Great Tip Thomas! I’ve also been thinking about if there was anything similar to this. Will try it!
Anonymous
This brings me to an idea:…
Anonymous
Great tip! I also use this macro.
And this is my modification of the macro:
Public Module AttachToAspNet
Declare Function SetForegroundWindow Lib “user32” (ByVal hwnd As Long) As Long
Declare Function keybd_event Lib “user32” (ByVal bVk As Byte, ByVal bScan As Byte, _
ByVal dwFlags As Long, ByVal dwExtraInfo As Long) As Long
Const VK_F5 = &H74
Function RefreshIE(ByVal ifRefresh As Boolean)
Dim process As System.Diagnostics.Process
Dim processes As System.Diagnostics.Process()
processes = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcesses()
For Each process In processes
If (process.ProcessName = “iexplore”) Then
SetForegroundWindow(process.MainWindowHandle.ToInt32())
If ifRefresh Then
keybd_event(VK_F5, 0, 0, 0)
End If
Exit Function
End If
Next
End Function
Function GetAspNetWpProcessID() As Integer
Dim process As System.Diagnostics.Process
Dim processes As System.Diagnostics.Process()
processes = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcesses()
For Each process In processes
If (process.ProcessName = “aspnet_wp”) Then
Return process.Id
End If
Next
Return -1
End Function
Sub AttachToAspNet()
Dim process As EnvDTE.Process
Dim aspnet_wpProcessID As Integer
aspnet_wpProcessID = GetAspNetWpProcessID()
If aspnet_wpProcessID = -1 Then
Exit Sub
End If
For Each process In DTE.Debugger.DebuggedProcesses
If (process.ProcessID = aspnet_wpProcessID) Then
Exit Sub
End If
Next
For Each process In DTE.Debugger.LocalProcesses
If (process.ProcessID = aspnet_wpProcessID) Then
process.Attach()
If MsgBox(“Refresh IE?”, MsgBoxStyle.YesNo) = MsgBoxResult.Yes Then
RefreshIE(True)
Exit Sub
End If
End If
Next
End Sub
End Module
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