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Quick tutorial on debugging the MIEngine

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Pierson Lee edited this page Oct 30, 2018 · 14 revisions

This wiki page will give a quick overview on how you can get started digging into the source code of the MIEngine. In this tutorial, we are going to debug an Android native C++ project, as support for Android is built into Visual Studio. If you are interested in modifying the MIEngine to target some other platform, this tutorial is still probably useful to you so that you can see how to quickly test your code for the Android scenario.

Setup steps:

  1. Install Visual Studio on a real computer (not a VM), as this tutorial uses the Visual Studio Emulator for Android (see system requirements).

  2. Follow the instruction in building the MIEngine. The Android tooling that this page talks about is required.

  3. If you haven't already done so, clone the MIEngine repository.

NOTE: If you are using Visual Studio 2017, you will need to find the file Microsoft.MIDebugPackage.pkgdef inside your Visual Studio installation directory. The file resides in <Visual Studio Install Directory>\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\MDD\Debugger.

  1. In Microsoft.MIDebugPackage.pkgdef, locate the following lines:
[$RootKey$\BindingPaths\{7A28CEDA-DA3E-4172-B19A-BB9C810046A6}]
"$PackageFolder$"=""
  1. Comment those lines out by adding a ; in front of the lines like below:
; [$RootKey$\BindingPaths\{7A28CEDA-DA3E-4172-B19A-BB9C810046A6}]
; "$PackageFolder$"=""
  1. Open a Developer Command Prompt and run devenv.exe /updateConfiguration.

Steps:

  1. Start your main instance of Visual Studio, and open MIDebugEngine.sln.

  2. In solution explorer, find the MIDebugEngine project, and open Engine.Impl\DebuggedProcess.cs.

  3. Find the Initialize method of the class, and set a breakpoint.

  4. Hit F5 to start debugging. This will launch an experimental instance of Visual Studio.

  5. In The experimental instance:

    1. File -> New Project, Visual C++ -> Cross Platform -> Native-Activity Application (Android).

    2. Open main.cpp from the created project.

    3. Set a breakpoint in the android_main method.

    4. F5 or Debug -> Start Debugging to start debugging. The Android emulator should startup. This will be slow the first time, but should be subsequently fast.

  6. Your breakpoint in DebuggedProcess.Initialize will hit. You can step through and see the commands that are being sent to GDB if you like. If you open the output window in your main Visual Studio instance, you can also see all the commands that we sent and the response/events that came back.

  7. Hit F5 from this breakpoint and see your experimental instance stop at a breakpoint as well.

Experimental instance of Visual Studio stopped at a breakpoint

Documentation

Visual Studio

VS Code

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