How do I start a program with arguments when debugging?

Question

I want to debug a program in Visual Studio 2008. The problem is that it exits if it doesn\'t get arguments. This is from the main method:

if (args == null ||         


        

Answer 1

My suggestion would be to use Unit Tests.

In your application do the following switches in Program.cs:

#if DEBUG
    public class Program
#else
    class Program
#endif

and the same for static Main(string[] args).

Or alternatively use Friend Assemblies by adding

[assembly: InternalsVisibleTo("TestAssembly")]

to your AssemblyInfo.cs.

Then create a unit test project and a test that looks a bit like so:

[TestClass]
public class TestApplication
{
    [TestMethod]
    public void TestMyArgument()
    {
        using (var sw = new StringWriter())
        {
            Console.SetOut(sw); // this makes any Console.Writes etc go to sw

            Program.Main(new[] { "argument" });

            var result = sw.ToString();

            Assert.AreEqual("expected", result);
        }
    }
}

This way you can, in an automated way, test multiple inputs of arguments without having to edit your code or change a menu setting every time you want to check something different.