How can I debug code like CodeCampServer, that is based on Depedency Injection?

Question

My project structure is like CodeCampServer structure, etc. UI.dll, Core.dll and DependencyResolution.dll that have a dependecy of both of UI.dll and core.dll.

In the web.config I use a HttpModules from the DependencyResolution.dll, to instantiate all the dependencies, and therefore I can't run this application in VS2008 because the UI.dll don't have a reference to DependencyResolution.dll (I can't reference it because as I already said DependencyResolution.dll have already reference to UI.dll), so therefore I lost the opportunity to debug this application in a regular manner of step into the code.

I thought maybe I can try use the attach to process feature, and debug the application on the localhost IIS (version 7 on windows 7 machine) but unfortunately it's not worked as expected. when an error occur the VS don't highlight the code, and I can't step in to it.

My question is what the best way to debug this kind of applications (CodeCampServer is a good example).

Answer 1

Just because you don't have a reference to the .dll doesn't mean that you can't debug the application. You should be able to debug the application as normal, but if it complains about the missing DependencyResolution.dll, you can copy it to the bin folder manually, or write a post-build script that does it for you.