Advanced .net Debugging

by Hewardt, Mario

• ISBN13: 9780321578891
• ISBN10: 0321578899
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-09
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Mario Hewardt, senior development lead at Microsoft, has pioneered Windows system-level development for more than a decade. He currently leads a development team that builds ground-breaking online IT management solutions. Hewardt is coauthor of Advanced Windows Debugging (Addison-Wesley, 2008).

Table of Contents

Foreword xix

Preface xxi

Acknowledgments xxxi

About the Author xxxiii

 

Part I: Overview 1

 

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Tools 3

Debugging Tools for Windows 3

.NET 2.0–Redistributable 4

.NET 2.0–SDK 5

SOS 8

SOSEX 10

CLR Profiler 11

Performance Counters 14

Reflector for .NET 15

PowerDbg 16

Managed Debugging Assistants 18

Summary 21

 

Chapter 2: CLR Fundamentals 23

High-Level Overview 23

CLR and the Windows Loader 26

Application Domains 33

Assembly Overview 38

Assembly Manifest 39

Type Metadata 42

Summary 68

 

Chapter 3: Basic Debugging Tasks 69

The Debugger and the Debugger Target 69

Symbols 74

Controlling Execution 77

Loading Managed Code Extensions 85

Controlling CLR Debugging 90

Setting Breakpoints 90

Object Inspection 103

Thread Operations 131

Code Inspection 143

CLR Internals Commands 146

Diagnostics Commands 149

SOSEX Extension Commands 151

Crash Dump Files 163

Summary 165

 

Part II: Applied Debugging 167

 

Chapter 4: Assembly Loader 169

CLR Loader Overview 169

Simple Assembly Load Failure 179

Load Context Failure 185

Interoperability and DllNotFoundException 195

Debugging Light Weight Code Generation 197

Summary 202

 

Chapter 5: Managed Heap and Garbage Collection 203

Windows Memory Architecture Overview 204

Garbage Collector Internals 213

Debugging Managed Heap Corruptions 254

Debugging Managed Heap Fragmentation 262

Debugging Out of Memory Exceptions 272

Summary 291

 

Chapter 6: Synchronization 293

Synchronization Basics 293

Thread Synchronization Primitives 294

Synchronization Internals 306

Synchronization Scenarios 316

Summary 344

 

Chapter 7: Interoperability 345

Platform Invocation 345

COM Interoperability 352

Debugging P/Invoke Calls 358

Debugging Interop Leaks 373

Debugging COM Interop Finalization 378

Summary 388

 

Part III: Advanced Topics 389

 

Chapter 8: Postmortem Debugging 391

Dump File Fundamentals 392

Windows Error Reporting 409

Summary 438

 

Chapter 9: Power Tools 439

PowerDbg 439

Visual Studio 448

CLR Profiler 460

WinDbg and the CmdTree Command 467

Summary 469

 

Chapter 10: CLR 4.0 471

Tools 471

Managed Heap and Garbage Collection 472

Synchronization 480

Interoperability 483

Postmortem Debugging 484

Summary 485

 

Index 487