Visual Studio Keyboard Shortcuts that Speed Up Debugging Applications | Mosh

Key Takeaways

knowing how to use your keyboard when debuging an application is extremely important if you want to increase your productivity one of the things that I don't like about Visual Studio is this start button here on the toolbar I think it promotes the bad habit of using the mouse I've seen a lot of developers run the application using this button here and to make the matter worse they don't even know this way they run the application in the debug mode when you run the application in the debug mode Visual Studio loads extra information in the memory to provide you with the ability to debug the application this slows down your PC and affects your productivity you have to wait longer for the application to load and to respond to your actions often you just want to run the application to test your code not necessarily to debug then you shouldn't waste your time and your computer's Resources by going to the debug mode every time use the debug mode only when you're trying to fix a bug so how can we run the application without going to the debug mode you press contrl and F5 this will compile your application and launch it faster the application will also respond to your actions faster if you really need to go to the debug mode instead of pressing control and F5 press F5 only this is equivalent to pressing the start icon here on the toolbar so from now on if you ever need to debug the application make sure to use your keyboard to initiate the debugging session so let's repeat one more time because I want to make sure you really get this press contrl and F5 to run the application and press F5 to run the application in the debug mode okay now let's look at some more keyboard shortcuts that you need to know when debugging here in the main method I've created a new instance of the calculator class as you see there is a call to the add method with two arguments passed let's say this method is not working as we expect so we need to debug it we start by putting a breakpoint on this line when you insert a breakpoint and start the application in the debug mode the application code is executed until it reaches a breakpoint and then stops there to insert a breakpoint with the cursor on this line press F9 not this icon here that represents a breakpoint you can press f F9 again to remove the breakpoint now we run the application in the debug mode using F5 note that this line is highlighted we have two choices now we can step into the ad method and look exactly what's happening there or we can step over it and look at the result from a productivity point of view I recommend you to use a step over first and inspect the result if the result is not what you expect then you st step into a method to find out what's going on if you step into methods all the time you'll waste a lot of time verifying the code that may already be working so let's try this with the current line highlighted we press F10 that's the shortcut key for step over now we can inspect the result by hovering the mouse over this result variable here in this case it's okay to use your mouse to quickly inspect a few variables here and there as you see the value of the result is zero whereas I expected to be four so we need to step into the ad method to see what's going on there is just a tiny issue here the execution of code is always forward only you can't go back as you see the focus is currently on the console the right line method here so we can't go back and step into the ad method we need to stop the debugging session and start over to do this press control shift and F5 okay now we can step into the ad method to do this we press f11 so remember this to step over a method you press F10 and to step into it you press f11 these are your friends and you'll use them forever okay back to our debugging look where the execution now we can hover the mouse over these two arguments here to make sure they hold the right values as you see the input values are fine so there must be something wrong with the logic of this method note that it's returning zero instead of adding the two arguments together so let's go ahead and change the code now we press F10 to continue the ex execution and again and again and again okay now let's inspect the result variable it has the right value so let's review up to this point before I show you a few more techniques you use F5 to run the application in the debug mode you use F10 to step over a method and f11 to step into it now here is a good technique if you accidentally step into a method but your intention was to step over it you can always step out by pressing shift and F1 it's very easy to memorize this you press f11 to step into a method and shift an f11 to step out of it okay one more thing before we finish this lecture when you're in the debug mode it's possible to have multiple break points in different parts of the code that you would like to inspect if you press F4 five the execution continues until hitting the next break point sometimes you leave various break points here and there but you won't need them anymore then every time you start the debugging session those break points will get in the way and waste your time so make sure to remove them by pressing F9 if you no longer need them let's recap press contrl and F5 to run the application without debugging press F5 to run the application in the debug mode press shift and F5 to stop the debugging session press F9 to insert or remove a breakpoint press F10 to step over a method press f11 to step into it and finally press shift and F1 to step out of it I hope you enjoyed this lecture