Is CreatePDB="0" inverted or simply not working?

Uniwares_AS

I do have set the CreatePDB to no, but I get an error from SA accessing the .PDB file. When I set it to create the pdb there is no error. This happens for all projects, not a specific one. Am using VS2010.

<Options>
            <Debugging CreatePDB="0" />
        </Options>

Here is the build log

------ Build started: Project: MyApplication, Configuration: Release Any CPU ------
  SmartAssembly v5.1.0.3
  Copyright c Red Gate Software 2005-2010
  Loading project X:\Uniwares\Apps\Build\MyApplication.{sa}proj
    Output=X:\Uniwares\Apps\Applications\MyApplication\obj\Release\MyApplication.exe
  Analyzing...
  Preparing...
  Creating Assembly...
  ERROR: SmartAssembly cannot access X:\Uniwares\Apps\Applications\MyApplication\obj\Release\MyApplication.pdb'.
  
  The file is probably in use or locked by another process. Please try again and restart SmartAssembly if the problem persists.
X:\Uniwares\SmartAssembly.targets(10,3): error MSB6006: "SmartAssembly.com" exited with code 1.

nick.maidment

hmm, seems a little backwards!

Can you close sa and then use process explorer to see what is holding on to the pdbs? what happens if you move the pdbs in question then try to build without debugging infomation?

JasonC

You get this if the output path of the VS build is the same as the output path for SmartAssembly. i.e. You can get this error if "Output Path" in Visual Studio->Properties->Build is set to "\obj\Release\MyApplication.exe". It should be set to something like "\bin\Release\MyApplication.exe"

The PDB thing isn't about SmartAssembly's PDB option, it's about SA reading from the build output of VS (in obj\release) and writing it to the same file (in obj\release).

Tell me if this helps!

Uniwares_AS

@nick: will try and see what's happening with that.

@Jason: since I am using it as a aftercompile step, i cant change the output to something else or other build steps after will fail. But anyway, it doesn't make any sense, why would it fail to read but succeed to write?

Uniwares_AS

Just ran it under procmon and saved the log for both cases, with and without pdb creation.

For me it looks like SA shoots in its own foot since VS is closing the file before passing control to SA.

The difference is that with CreatePDB=0 SA tries to delete the pdb file which VS created while it is still open for reading. With CreatePDB=1, SA writes to a new .pdb file in the temp folder then calls {CLRTools}.exe to process both files and does NOT try to delete the file.

Can send you the logs.

Uniwares_AS

Oh, one more thing. CreatePDB=0 works fine when I change the build settings from "full" or "pdb-only" to "none". While I might understand that if SA depends on the PDB creation settings of the compiler it could report an error, it definitely should not be the current one.