Debug only code that should run only when turned on

Question

I would like to add some C   debug only  code that only runs if the person debugging requests it   In C    I used to do something similar to the following   void foo                    ifdef DEBUG   static bool s bDoDebugOnlyCode   false    if  s bDoDebugOnlyCode               Debug only code here gets executed when the person debugging           manually sets the bool above to true   It then stays for the rest          of the session until they set it to false         endif             I can t do exactly the same in C  since there is no local statics   Question  What is the best way to accomplish this in C     Should I use a private class static field with C  preprocessor directives   if  endif DEBUG   Should I use the Conditional attribute  to hold the code   and then a private class static field  not surrounded by C  preprocessor directives  if  endif DEBUG    Something else

User · Answer

You could try this if you only need the code to run when you have a debugger attached to the process   if  Debugger IsAttached            do some stuff here

User · Answer

An instance variable would probably be the way to do what you want  You could make it static to persist the same value for the life of the program  or thread depending on your static memory model   or make it an ordinary instance var to control it over the life of an object instance  If that instance is a singleton  they ll behave the same way    if DEBUG private   static   bool s bDoDebugOnlyCode   false   endif  void foo                  if DEBUG   if  s bDoDebugOnlyCode               Code here gets executed only when compiled with the DEBUG constant            and when the person debugging manually sets the bool above to true             It then stays for the rest of the session until they set it to false       endif             Just to be complete  pragmas  preprocessor directives  are considered a bit of a kludge to use to control program flow   NET has a built-in answer for half of this problem  using the  Conditional  attribute   private   static   bool doDebugOnlyCode   false    Conditional  DEBUG    void foo                       if  doDebugOnlyCode               Code here gets executed only when compiled with the DEBUG constant            and when the person debugging manually sets the bool above to true             It then stays for the rest of the session until they set it to false                       No pragmas  much cleaner  The downside is that Conditional can only be applied to methods  so you ll have to deal with a boolean variable that doesn t do anything in a release build  As the variable exists solely to be toggled from the VS execution host  and in a release build its value doesn t matter  it s pretty harmless

User · Answer

I think it may be worth mentioning that  ConditionalAttribute  is in the System Diagnostics  namespace   I stumbled a bit when I got   Error 2 The type or namespace name  ConditionalAttribute  could not be found  are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference     after using it for the first time  I thought it would have been in System

User · Answer

What you re looking for is    ConditionalAttribute  DEBUG      attribute   If you for instance write a method like      ConditionalAttribute  DEBUG    public static void MyLovelyDebugInfoMethod string message        Console WriteLine  This message was brought to you by your debugger           Console WriteLine message       any call you make to this method inside your own code will only be executed in debug mode  If you build your project in release mode  even call to the  MyLovelyDebugInfoMethod  will be ignored and dumped out of your binary   Oh and one more thing if you re trying to determine whether or not your code is currently being debugged at the execution moment  it is also possible to check if the current process is hooked by a JIT  But this is all together another case  Post a comment if this is what you2re trying to do

User · Answer

If you want to know whether if debugging  everywhere in program  Use this   Declare global variable     bool isDebug false    Create function for checking debug mode   ConditionalAttribute  DEBUG        public static void isDebugging                 isDebug   true          In the initialize method call the function  isDebugging      Now in the entire program  You can check for debugging and do the operations  Hope this Helps

[c#] "Debug only" code that should run only when "turned on"

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