How Can I Effectively Debug WixSharp Custom Actions?

WixSharp Custom Action Debugging Guide

Custom actions provide extensibility to Windows Installer packages, allowing developers to perform specific tasks during the installation process. When developing custom actions, debugging is critical to identifying and resolving any issues. This article explores debugging techniques for WixSharp custom actions, with a particular focus on using conditions to control debugging behavior and launching the debugger within a custom action.

Understanding custom operations

WixSharp custom actions are compiled into .dll assemblies and integrated into Windows Installer packages. Typically, debugging custom actions requires packaging them as wixsharp.bin for runtime execution. However, this method may be inconvenient.

Debug custom operations

To effectively debug custom operations, consider the following techniques:

• Conditional debugger launch: Use the System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Launch() method to launch the Visual Studio debugger when performing a custom action. This method can be placed in a conditional block such as #if DEBUG to ensure it is only activated in debug builds.
• Debug assertions: Use Debug.Assert() to perform runtime checks and display debugging information. This method is useful for debugging specific conditions or validating input.
• Debug Configuration: Build your custom action project as a DEBUG configuration to enable debug symbols and optimized debug settings.

Custom operation example

The following custom operations implement a simple debugging mechanism:

[CustomAction]
public static ActionResult CustomAction(Session session)
{

#if DEBUG
    System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Launch();
#endif

    MessageBox.Show("Hello World!" + session[IISSessions.AppPoolName], "External Managed CA");

    return ActionResult.Success;
}

In this example, Debug.Assert() calls the check condition and starts the debugger if DEBUG is true. Otherwise, it continues execution without debugging. Conditional blocks ensure that debugging is only performed during debug builds.

Enable debugging

To enable debugging, follow these steps:

• Build custom action projects with DEBUG configuration.
• Run the generated .msi file.
• When performing custom actions, you will be prompted to open a Visual Studio instance. Accept the prompt to enter the debugger and trace the execution of the custom action.

By leveraging these debugging techniques, developers can effectively troubleshoot and debug WixSharp custom actions, ensuring they run reliably and error-free during Windows Installer package installation.

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