如何让 Visual Studio 调试 Android 应用程序？

Question

I'm using Visual Studio 2017 to build and deploy a NativeActivity to my Android device. It builds and deploys with no issues, but I cannot set breakpoints.

Before running, I can add a breakpoint to a line (the first line of android_main() for example) and the little red circle shows up on the left of that line in the IDE as you'd expect.

But after installing and running the app, the breakpoint doesn't trigger because the red circle has turned white - it's saying there are no debug symbols.

I've verified I'm building the Debug version and have verified the APK file is bigger and has the debug symbols by using Android Studio.

At this point it appears to me that Visual Studio itself is confused and somehow doesn't recognize the debug symbols.

I've added "-g" to the C++ options manually, and have added the Gradle line packagingOptions.doNotStrip '**.so' as well. But still this problem persists.

What would cause this behavior in Visual Studio and how can I fix it?

Answer 1

The Xamarin debugger can only debug managed (ie C#) code. Breakpoints only work with the Xamarin debugger if the project being debugged is a managed project. They don't work if the project is a native app or native library.

So you have to make NativeActivity c++ app be attached to a Xamarin Managed App(Acttach to Process）to get what you want.

1) create a c# xamarin android app and then input that xamarin managed apk file into the NativeActivity c++ app's Properties --> Debugging --> Package To Launch

2) start Xamarin c# app first and then make the Xamarin debugger active. While the managed app is still running or being debugged, right-click on the native library project and select Debug --> Attach to Android process .

Here is an example provided by Richard Walters and he provided the detailed info.