Tracking down Access Violations

[David Medlock]

Jeremy wrote:
> My program is starting to get fairly large, and all seems to be going fairly
> well...
> 
> UNTIL this "Error: Access Violation" started popping up. I'm not sure where it
> is coming from, and I've been having a hard time tracking it down.
> 
> What is the best way to track these down? In some C/C++ applications, I could
> actually get one of those 'Illegal Operation' windows from Windows XP, which
> would tell me the instruction address, and then I could do an object dump to see
> which assembly instruction messed it up: but D just says "Error: Access
> violation" and that's it :(
> 
> The "-g" option gives me "forward reference" errors so I cannot run it through a
> debugger and get good results (correct?).
> 
> It seems like the only good way to do this is to keep commenting out code until
> it doesn't happen anymore (but the error is hard to reproduce, so it's hard to
> know if it just hasnt happened yet or not). Or -- add in debug writefln's
> everywhere and see when they stop.
> 
> There should be a better way I hope?
> 
> 
Sure.

1. Compile your files with -g.
2. run 'windbg <your-prog>.exe'
3. In Windbg click File -> open
4. Type in the name of your source file with main() in it, and click OK
5. Click Run or Hit F5.

When the access violation occurs, the source line is highlighted.

-DavidM