Debugging: Attach to Process for Console App running inside cmd.exe

Question

How do you "Attach to Process..." for a console application thats running from a CMD window and not launched by F5? The reason I ask is because the application takes command line arguments and I want to have a genuine experience.

I've even attaching to CMD.exe, but no luck, or setting a break-point using Console.ReadKey() with also no luck. I'm kind of at a loss here.

Is this possible?

Answer 1

You have some options:

• Use "Debug -> Command line arguments" option in Visual Studio;
• Use "Debug -> Attach to process" and find your process; it is not cmd.exe, but a process with executable name like "MyProject.exe". You can use Process Explorer or another task manager with "tree view" support to easily find the Process ID - just look for the processes started by your cmd.exe.
• Put Debugger.Break() into your code - when this method is executed, the system will launch a dialog asking you to choose what instance of Visual Studio to use for debugging (you can choose the one with your project already open).

Answer 2

To debug from the command line rather than using the VS GUI maze:

• Launch the Visual Studio Command Prompt

• type vsjitdebugger/? which gives you the command example like :

c:> vsjitdebugger [AppName] [Args] : Launch the specified executable and attach to debugger

• typing tlist or tasklist will give you PIDs for attaching to existing processes. example:

c:> tasklist | find /i "web"