C＃项目-本机.dll的参考.pdb

Question

I have a solution containing a C# Forms project that creates a UI on top of a native .dll which contains most of my program's code.

I spend most of my time working on the native code reather than C#, which means that the DLL I'm loading through my C# UI project is modified very often, and so is it's associated .pdb file which I need for debugging what I do.

However it is not possible to reference a .pdb file like one would reference a .dll, so how could I make this .pdb be copied everytime it is modified ? Adding it as an existing item is just copying it and doesn't update it when the original .pdb file gets modified.

Two only solution I see is generating the .pdb file directly into the C#'s bin/debug instead of generating it inside the native .dll project, but I'm not sure this is possible. Second solution would be to add a link to that .pdb file into the project instead of the actual .pdb file, but I'm not sure that it would work any way.

Is there a workaround to this ? I couldn't find any. Thank you.

Answer 1

MSVC provides Build-Events (MSVC++ 2010: project's properties -> 'Configuration Properties' -> 'Build Events' – this exists for C# and in later MSVC versions, too, possibly at another location, however). You can define pre- and post-build events there (in case of C++, pre-link events, too).

You can call shell commands, call a batch script, or (if you have installed an appropriate interpreter) event perl or python scripts. From within such a script (either as post build for the dll, copying the .pdb file away, or – what I would prefer personally – from within the C# project as pre build event).