Visual Studio Debugger Extensibility

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 includes a fully interactive source code debugger, providing a powerful and easy-to-use tool for tracking down bugs in your program. The debugger has complete support for the Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual J#, and C/C++ languages, in addition to the scripting languages ECMA, VBScript and JScript. However, with the Visual Studio Debugging SDK, available through the Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program, other computer languages can be supported in the debugger with the same rich features.

Notes

Creating a new language extension to the debugger requires a VSPackage license supplied under the terms of the VSIP program.

The Visual Studio Debugger is the common front end (that is, the user interface) to the debugging components that are, in turn, specific to the language being debugged. For new languages, all that is necessary for support by the Visual Studio Debugger is to create the necessary back-end components, such as a debug engine (DE). That is where the Visual Studio Debugger SDK comes in.

The Visual Studio Debugger SDK includes a complete reference to all Visual Studio elements required to create a new DE. In addition, there are samples and tutorials that will help get you started.

For an end-to-end sample of a language project system with debugging support, see the IronPython sample.

The following sections describe the Debugger SDK in detail.

In This Section

• Getting Started (Visual Studio Debugging SDK)
  Describes what Visual Studio Debugging offers and how to install the SDK.

• Creating a Custom Debug Engine
  Documents the custom DE process, from preparing your program for a DE to detaching the DE.

• Writing a Common Language Runtime Expression Evaluator
  Explains whether you must write an expression evaluator.

• Tutorial: Building a Debug Engine Using ATL COM
  Provides step-by-step instructions on how to create a COM-based DE using Visual C++.

• Choosing a Debug Engine Implementation Strategy
  Discusses how to implement your DE.

• Reference (Visual Studio Debugging SDK)
  Documents the Visual Studio Debugging API.

• Visual Studio Debugging Samples
  Contains a common language runtime expression evaluator sample.