Micro Focus Visual Cobol debug build, pdb and idy files don't match

Question

I'm having an issue with compiled visual cobol code from our automated build server. When I go to attach the VS2010 debugger to the cobol program, it prompts for a .idy file but in my case the file has a " appended to it. The output idy files don't have a " in the filename and I don't know where in the build process the reference to the idy file is getting messed up. Does anyone have experience with this problem? Just to clarify, Visual Studio 2010 is looking for a file of the form *.diy" <- where the quotes should NOT be there.

Regards

Answer 1

Hi Jake,

If the path to the .idy file contains a space, then you may see a quote appended to the file name that appears in the dialog title but this in itself is not directly related to the problem you’re encountering.

IDY files are created by the debug build configuration only and are output to the same location as your assembly. Amongst other things, the .idy file contains information about fields within your program and is used by the debugger when you want to add a watch item for example.

I would not expect you to be prompted to locate the .idy file if you had built the project for release, so my assumption is that the .idy file is either missing or in a different location to the executable.

A few quick questions for you:

When you cancel the Find IDY dialog do you see the source code – can you still step through?

Is there an .idy file in the same location as the executable?

If you open the executable in Reflector and disassemble your assembly, you will notice a DebugIDYFile custom attribute associated with the class. Is the path to the IDY file consistent with the executable you’re trying to debug?

Is this an ASP.NET project?

Regards, Scot Nielsen