I noticed an article on the Infinite Codex blog that demonstrates how to debug CLR Stored Procedures. The example uses a #if preprocessor directive to compile the debugging code only if the DEBUG symbol is defined. Personally, I find using the #if directive makes your code look rather ugly, and accidentally including code inside the directive that you did not intend to becomes a real possibility. My preferred solution is to use the ConditionalAttribute to refactor such code out into a separate method.

Applying ConditionalAttribute to a method indicates to compilers that a call to the method should not be compiled into Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) unless the conditional compilation symbol that is associated withConditionalAttribute is defined.

Using this approach you can create a helper class that includes methods that should only be called when the DEBUG symbol is defined. When you compile with the RELEASE symbol defined all calls to the methods will simply be excluded from the generated MSIL.

public static class Debugging
{
    [Conditional("DEBUG")]
    public static void Break()
    {
        Debugger.Break();
    }
}

If you run the code below in Debug mode with the debugger attached, a breakpoint will occur immediately after the first Console.WriteLine method call.

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Before the Debugging.Break() method.");
        Debugging.Break();
        Console.WriteLine("After the Debugging.Break() method.");
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
}

When the debugger is not attached and you compiled in Debug mode, the Visual Studio Just-In-Time Debugger dialog is presented for you to selected a debugger to attach with.

If you run in Release mode no breakpoint will be hit when the debugger is attached, and the Visual Studio Just-In-Time Debugger dialog will not be presented when you run without the debugger attached.

One of the first things I configured in my Visual Studio environment when I starting using TFS was keyboard shortcuts to make comparing my pending changes easier. I find having to right-click on each item in the Pending Changes window and navigate through the context menu to perform a comparison quickly tests my patience. The drop down menu on the tool bar button is slightly faster but still not quick enough for my liking. I am always fastest when my hands don’t need to leave the keyboard.

I have configured keyboard shortcuts to compare my pending changes with the Latest, Workspace and Previous versions. Obviously the shortcuts only work when the option would normally appear enabled on the context menu. To configure these shortcuts select Options from the Tools menu in Visual Studio. In the Options dialog use the tree to drill into Environment and then to the Keyboard settings. Enter the command names below into the Show commands containing text box one at a time:

• TeamFoundationContextMenus.SourceControlPendingChangesSourceFiles.Compare.TfsContextPendingCheckinsCompareWithLatestVersion
• TeamFoundationContextMenus.SourceControlPendingChangesSourceFiles.Compare.TfsContextPendingCheckinsCompareWithWorkspaceVersion
• TeamFoundationContextMenus.SourceControlPendingChangesSourceFiles.Compare.TfsContextPendingCheckinsCompareWithPreviousVersion

For each command enter your desired keyboard shortcut into the Press shortcut keys text box and click the Assign button. I have used the shortcut keys below, assigned to the commands in the same ordinal position above:

• Ctrl+`
• Ctrl+Shift+`
• Ctrl+Alt+`

With this in place I can quickly fire up and navigate through my diffs in WinMerge using only my keyboard. No mucking about and no reaching for the mouse. Even a simple set of steps can become frustrating when you have to repeat them a large number of times. Save yourself all that clunky mouse based GUI interaction and embrace the power of the keyboard!

Update: With the new Pending Changes page in Visual Studio 2012 the command have changed.

For Visual Studio 2012 use the command names below instead:

• TeamFoundationContextMenus.PendingChangesPageChangestoInclude.TfsContextPendingChangesPageCompareWithLatestVersion
• TeamFoundationContextMenus.PendingChangesPageChangestoInclude.TfsContextPendingChangesPageCompareWithPreviousVersion
• TeamFoundationContextMenus.PendingChangesPageChangestoInclude.TfsContextPendingChangesPageCompareWithWorkspaceVersion