A session at the Sela Developer Practice covering IntelliTrace, a powerful feature of Visual Studio Ultimate that can provide historical debugging information collected in development or production environments. IntelliTrace is a hybrid logger-profiler-debugger that can uncover super-difficult bugs by tracing through the history of the application's execution.

1. SELA DEVELOPER PRACTICE
December 15-19, 2013
Sasha Goldshtein
CTO, SELA Group
@goldshtn
blog.sashag.net
Mastering IntelliTrace in
Development and
Production
© Copyright SELA software & Education Labs Ltd. | 14-18 Baruch Hirsch St Bnei Brak, 51202 Israel | www.selagroup.com

2. IntelliTrace®
Profiler-logger-debugger hybrid
“Historical Debugging”
Tracks events and method call information at
runtime
Records stack trace, local variables, and
custom information for each event
Records exceptions for later review

3. Historical Debugging with
IntelliTrace
Demo

4. What Exactly Is Collected?
Method parameters
Method return values
Reference type local variables
For each referenced object, whether or not it was
there (but not its contents)
void ReadTweets(string account) {
List<Tweet> tweets = GetTweets(account, 10);
int count = 3;
for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i)
DisplayTweet(tweets[i]);
}

5. Customizing The Events Collection

6. Collecting IntelliTrace Logs
Visual Studio can save logs from every run
under IntelliTrace
By default at C:ProgramDataMicrosoft Visual
Studio<VERSION>TraceDebugging
IntelliTraceSC.exe launch /cp:plan.xml app.exe
PowerShell cmdlets for ASP.NET/SharePoint
Microsoft Test Manager integration
Microsoft System Center integration

7. Opening IntelliTrace Logs
Demo

8. IntelliTrace and Windows Azure
The only practical way to debug long-standing
issues in cloud applications

9. Collecting IntelliTrace from
Windows Azure
Demo

10. Extending IntelliTrace Events
Add your own events to CollectionPlan.xml
IntelliTrace can generate an event from any
method call in your code or framework code
Data queries
Declarative event formatting from method calls
Only basic types supported

11. Declarative Data Query
<DiagnosticEventSpecification>
<SettingsName _locID="...">Garbage collection</SettingsName>
<Bindings>
<Binding>
<ModuleSpecificationId>mscorlib</ModuleSpecificationId>
<TypeName>System.GC</TypeName>
<MethodName>Collect</MethodName>
<MethodId>System.GC.Collect(System.Int32):System.Void
</MethodId>
<ShortDescriptionGC induced</ShortDescription>
<LongDescription>GC of gen {0}.</LongDescription>
<DataQueries>
<DataQuery index="0" type="Int32" query="" />
</DataQueries>
</Binding>
</Bindings>
</DiagnosticEventSpecification>

12. Programmability Handlers
Custom code that formats event information
Consult
Microsoft.VisualStudio.DefaultDataQueries.dll
for inspiration (undocumented)

13. Programmable Data Query
<DiagnosticEventSpecification enabled="true">
<CategoryId>gesture</CategoryId>
<SettingsName _locID="...">Text Changed</SettingsName>
<Bindings>
<Binding>
<MethodId>DiagnosticControls.DiagnosticTextBox.
set_DiagnosticText(System.String):System.Void
</MethodId>
<ProgrammableDataQuery>
<ModuleName>WinFormsDataQueries.dll</ModuleName>
<TypeName>DiagnosticTextBoxDataQuery</TypeName>
</ProgrammableDataQuery>
</Binding>
</Bindings>
</DiagnosticEventSpecification>

14. Programmable Handler
public class DiagnosticTextBoxDQ : IProgrammableDataQuery
{
public object[] EntryQuery(object thisArg, object[] args) {
return new object[] {
_nameProperty.GetValue(thisArg, null),
_textProperty.GetValue(thisArg, null) };
}
public object[] ExitQuery(object returnValue) {
return null;
}
public string FormatShortDescription(object[] results) {
return string.Format("Text changed for textbox {0}",
results[0].ToString());
}
//More methods to format and store the collected data
}

15. Summary
IntelliTrace is super-useful inside Visual Studio
while debugging
You can also collect IntelliTrace data from
QA, cloud, and production environments
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/hh398365
You can extend IntelliTrace with your own
events

16. Questions
Sasha Goldshtein
CTO, SELA Group
@goldshtn
blog.sashag.net