[visual-studio] How to debug external class library projects in visual studio?

I have a project(A) that references an assembly from an external project(B) class library that is located in another vs solution.

I have yet to understand how i can efficiently debug the class library from B while running the program from project A. Is there something i have to enable on project B such as debug info etc so i can step-into at debug time from A?

Thanks in advance.

I was having a similar issue as my breakpoints in project(B) were not being hit. My solution was to rebuild project(B) then debug project(A) as the dlls needed to be updated.

Visual studio should allow you to debug into an external library.

Assume the path of

Project A

C:\Projects\ProjectA

Project B

C:\Projects\ProjectB

and the dll of ProjectB is in

C:\Projects\ProjectB\bin\Debug\

To debug into ProjectB from ProjectA, do the following

1. Copy B's dll with dll's .PDB to the ProjectA's compiling directory.
2. Now debug ProjectA. When code reaches the part where you need to call dll's method or events etc while debugging, press F11 to step into the dll's code.

NOTE : DO NOT MISS TO COPY THE .PDB FILE

I run two instances of visual studio--one for the external dll and one for the main application.
In the project properties of the external dll, set the following:

Build Events:

• copy /y "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).dll" "C:\<path-to-main> \bin\$(ConfigurationName)\$(TargetName).dll"

• copy /y "$(TargetDir)$(TargetName).pdb" "C:\<path-to-main> \bin\$(ConfigurationName)\$(TargetName).pdb"

Debug:

• Start external program: C:\<path-to-main>\bin\debug\<AppName>.exe

• Working Directory C:\<path-to-main>\bin\debug

This way, whenever I build the external dll, it gets updated in the main application's directory. If I hit debug from the external dll's project--the main application runs, but the debugger only hits breakpoints in the external dll. If I hit debug from the main project, the main application runs with the most recently built external dll, but now the debugger only hits breakpoints in the main project.

I realize one debugger will do the job for both, but I find it easier to keep the two straight this way.

This has bugged me for some time. What I usually end up doing is rebuilding my external library using debug mode, then copy both .dll and the .pdb file to the bin of my website. This allows me to step into the libarary code.

[according to Martin Beckett, the guy who send me this answer ]

You can debug into an external library.

In the project settings tab look for 'visual studio directories' in the 'source code' field include the path to the openCV sources. Then make sure that the .pdb files for each of the debug dll are in the same directory as the dll.

NuGet references

Assume the -Project_A (produces project_a.dll) -Project_B (produces project_b.dll) and Project_B references to Project_A by NuGet packages then just copy project_a.dll , project_a.pdb to the folder Project_B/Packages. In effect that should be copied to the /bin.

Now debug Project_A. When code reaches the part where you need to call dll's method or events etc while debugging, press F11 to step into the dll's code.