Advanced .NET debugging

The Only Complete, Practical Guide to Fixing the Toughest .NET Software Bugs. Advanced .NET Debugging is the first focused, pragmatic guide to tracking down today's most complex and challenging .NET application bugs. Authored by Mario Hewardt, coauthor of the widely praised Advanced Windows Debugging, this is the only book to focus entirely on .NET's powerful native debugging tools, including WinDBG, NTSD and CDB. Using these tools, Hewardt shows how to identify the real root causes of problems--far more quickly than you ever could with visual debuggers. Hewardt first introduces the key concepts experienced .NET developers, testers, and support professionals need to successfully use .NET's native debuggers. Next, he turns to sophisticated debugging techniques, using real-world examples that demonstrate many common C# programming errors. In particular, he presents the most thorough and useful guide to .NET memory debugging ever published. Advanced .NET Debugging also offers detailed, practical coverage of postmortem debugging, the use of PowerDBG and other "power tools", and, finally, the debugging implications of the new .NET CLR 4.0. This book enables you to. Master and successfully use Debugger Tools for Windows, SOS, SOSEX, CLR Profiler, and other powerful tools. Go beyond code reviews and tracing to identify root causes more quickly and accurately. Debug live machines with zero footprint and no configuration changes. Streamline and accelerate QA testing. Support production customers using static snapshots, not live processes. Perform key tasks such as examining thread-specific data, the garbage collector heap, and .NET exceptions. Troubleshoot complex .NET assembly dependencies. Solve difficult synchronization problems, including deadlocks and thread pool problems. Track down problems with Platform Invocation and COM Interoperability. Generate and successfully analyze crash dumps. Gain a deeper, more practical understanding of the .NET runtime and its components. This book is a must-have for experienced .NET developers, QA specialists, product support engineers and for operations engineers who maintain "cloud"-based .NET software.

Part I: Overview. Chapter 1: Introduction to the Tools. Chapter 2: CLR Fundamentals. Chapter 3: Basic Debugging Tasks. Part II: Applied Debugging. Chapter 4: Assembly Loader. Chapter 5: Managed Heap and Garbage Collection. Chapter 6: Synchronization. Chapter 7: Interoperability. Part III: Advanced Topics. Chapter 8: Postmortem Debugging. Chapter 9: Power Tools. Chapter 10: CLR 4.0.