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Visual Studio Debugger Glossary

The following are terms used in the Visual Studio Debugging SDK.

Terms

  • bound breakpoint
    An abstraction for a breakpoint set in code. There is a one-to-one relationship between a bound breakpoint and a breakpoint instruction in the code stream. When code unloads, bound breakpoints may unbind.

  • causality
    Provides the ability to track a logical thread of execution across multiple physical threads, processes, and machines, and to reconstruct the call stack of that logical thread at any given point in that thread’s lifetime.

  • code context
    Provides an abstraction of a position in code known to the debug engine. For most run-time architectures, a code context is an address in a program's instruction stream. For nontraditional languages, in which code may not be represented by instructions, a code context may be represented by other means.

  • code path
    Represents a point of execution in the code where a branch is taken or a function call is made. A stack trace is essentially a list of function call code paths.

  • debug engine (DE)
    A component that allows debugging of a run-time architecture. A debug engine works in conjunction with the interpreter or operating system and provides debugging services such as execution control, breakpoints, and expression evaluation.

  • document context
    Provides an abstraction of a position in a source file document known to the debug engine. For most languages, a document context is a position in a source file. For nontraditional languages, for which the source file may not be text, a document context might be represented by some other means. See also document position.

  • document position
    Provides an abstraction of a position in a source file known to the IDE. For most languages, a document position is a position in a source file. For nontraditional languages, a document position might be represented in other ways. See also document context.

  • error breakpoint
    An abstraction for describing an error in a pending breakpoint. An error breakpoint may describe an error in the ___location of the pending breakpoint, the expression associated with the pending breakpoint, or other information that prevents the pending breakpoint from binding to a code ___location.

  • evaluation context
    Provides an abstraction of a programming context for expression evaluation. Typically, an evaluation context is a scope. When doing expression evaluation in an expression context, the expression context provides scope rules that match its point of creation. For example, an expression context created in a stack frame will provide the context for evaluating local variables, method parameters, class members (if applicable), and global variables.

  • intercepted exception
    An exception that is intercepted by a debug engine, even if no exception handling mechanism is in place in the current stack frame.

  • JustMyCode
    The concept of debugging only the code that belongs to a user and ignoring all intermediate code such as system code—even if source code is available for that system code.

  • pending breakpoint
    Provides an abstraction for breakpoints before, during, and after code is loaded and a way to virtualize breakpoints. A pending breakpoint:

    • Contains all the information needed to bind a breakpoint to code in one or more programs.

    • May bind to multiple code locations in one or more programs.

    • Never binds itself to code.

    Each time code loads, all pending breakpoints in a program are checked to see if they can bind. A pending breakpoint is said to contain all bound breakpoints that it binds.

  • process
    A physical Win32 process. A process can contain multiple programs. See also program.

  • program
    A single namespace running inside a particular run-time architecture. See also process.

  • session debug manager (SDM)
    Manages any number of debug engines debugging any number of programs in multiple processes on any number of machines. At the basic level, the SDM is a multiplexer of debug engines. Additionally, the SDM provides a unified view of the debugging session to the IDE.

  • stack frame
    Represents the state of computation on a particular frame and particular level of nested function calls.

  • thread
    The generalized notion of stack-based instruction execution running in at least one program.

  • warning breakpoint
    An abstraction for describing a warning in a pending breakpoint. A warning breakpoint describes a reason why the pending breakpoint has not yet bound to a code ___location. This may be that the code has not loaded yet for the ___location described by the pending breakpoint, or for some other reason.

See Also

Other Resources

Visual Studio Debugger Extensibility