Debugger Contexts

  • Article

In Visual Studio debugging, the debug engine (DE) operates simultaneously within several distinct contexts, as follows:

  • The code context, which describes the current location in a program's execution stream.

  • The documentation context or position, which describes the current position within a source document.

  • The expression evaluation context, which describes the context in which expression evaluation will take place.

In This Section

  • Code Context
    Discusses code context as an address in a program's instruction stream in today's run-time architectures versus nontraditional languages, where code may not be represented by instructions, but some other means.

  • Document Position
    Defines document position in Visual Studio debugging by means of an abstraction of a position in a source file as known to the IDE.

  • Document Context
    Discusses what document context represents in Visual Studio debugging in relation to a source file. Also discusses how the symbol handler maps a code context to documentation context.

  • Expression Evaluation Context
    Provides information on an expression evaluation context in Visual Studio. For example, an expression evaluation context associated with a stack frame provides the context for evaluating local variables, method parameters, and class members.

  • Debugging Concepts
    Describes the main debugging architectural concepts.

  • Debugging Components
    Provides an overview of the Visual Studio debugging components, which include the debug engine (DE), expression evaluator (EE), and symbol handler (SH).

  • Debugging Tasks
    Contains links to various debugging tasks, such as launching a program and evaluating expressions.