Debug VBScript with Visual Studio

http://blog.theopensourceu.com/2009/05/debug-vbscript-with-visual-studio/

For a project that I work on at at my primary employer, we use VBScript inside of DTS packages. Until this project, I’ve not had too much experience with VBScript. What I’ve found most frustrating about the language is the inability to step though the code… until a recent discovery. I’ve found that if I save the target code to my local machine as a VBS file and execute it with WScript.exe, I can attach a debugger to it.

I’ve discovered this by poking around and I don’t know too much about WScript.exe. I’m sure if you Google it, you can find more about it.

For this to work, you’ll need a copy of Visual Studio installed. I am not sure if any of the express editions will work. Drop a line in the comments if you find it will. As a quick walk though:

1. Save your code as a VBS file. Don’t forget to call Main (or your main) function as wscript won’t automatically call main.
2. Open a command prompt.
3. Navigate to the location of the file.
4. Type: WScript.exe FileName.vbs //D //X
5. You should be prompted to select a debugger, select a new instance of either Visual Studio 2003, 2005 or 2008.
6. Visual studio will open up and break at the very first line.
7. Step though the code.

For an example, save the following as “Example.vbs” on your desktop.

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MsgBox "Starting Script!" Dim i : i = 0 Const C_Max = 100 Dim sPrimeNumberList : sPrimeNumberList = "Prime Numbers: " & vbCrLf For i = 0 to C_Max   If IsNumberPrimeNumber(i) Then      sPrimeNumberList = sPrimeNumberList & cStr (i) & ", "   End If Next MsgBox sPrimeNumberList MsgBox "Script Completed." Public Function IsNumberPrimeNumber( ByVal iNumber) Dim bIsPrime : bIsPrime = True For j = 2 To iNumber/2   bIsPrime = iNumber Mod j > 0   If Not bIsPrime Then Exit For Next IsNumberPrimeNumber = bIsPrime End Function

Open a command prompt and navigate to your desktop:

Command Prompt for Debugging VBScript from Visual Studio

Once there, type in the following:

1	wscript Example.vbs // D // X

You should then be presented with a dialog similar to the following:

Visual Studio Debugging VBScript

Once you make a selection, you should get something like the following:

Debugging VBScript from Visual Studio

From here, I’ll assume you are familiar enough with Visual Studio to play with the debugger and learn how it works. When debugging VBScript, I’ve found that you don’t have all the options that you might be used to such as Step In To, but for me simply having this much is a life saver.

To get around the step-in-to thing , I simply use Run to Cursor . It works like a charm.

Update: I just found that (at least on this computer) and in Visual Studio 2003, I have all my standard code-stepping buttons available. I’m not sure why on my work computer I only have Step-Over but either way, this is still a life saver.