debugging the inline code of custom layout pages in SharePoint

Source: Sowmyan's SharePoint Developer Blog

Have you ever tried to debug the inline code of custom layout pages of a SharePoint site ?. I have tried once and I couldn't able to debug the inline code by just opening it in VS.NET IDE and attaching the w3wp processor to the debugger. Initially I couldn't figure out why it is not able to debug the inline code. After that I have checked debug mode in the compilation tag of web.config, then I found that it was false by default as like this  <compilation
batch="false"
debug="false">

I had just made a change in that web.config file by making the debug="true" and I was able to debug the inline code.

<compilation
batch="false"
debug="true">

Whenever we create a custom layout page, we have to keep those aspx pages in the location C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS, now any SharePoint site in that particular SharePoint server can access that page by the following URL. http://<sitename>/_layouts/mycustom.aspx. If we create a custom layout page in the Layouts folder we can't use a separate code behind file as like what we normally use with aspx pages in a asp.net application (though we can create an asp.net application with aspx pages and code behind file and keep it in the layouts folder.).

Now consider we have created a custom layout page with name 'mycustom.aspx' and the following inline code.

<%@
Assembly
Name="Microsoft.SharePoint, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c"
%>

<%@
Assembly
Name="System.Web, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"
%>

<%@
Assembly
Name="System.Data, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"
%>

 

<%@
Page
Language="C#"
MasterPageFile="~/_layouts/application.master"
Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.WebControls.LayoutsPageBase"
%>

 

<%@
Import
Namespace="System.Web"
%>

<%@
Import
Namespace="System.Net.Mail"
%>

<%@
Import
Namespace="System.IO"
%>

<%@
Import
Namespace="Microsoft.SharePoint"
%>

 

<script
runat="server">

 

protected
override
void OnLoad(EventArgs e)

{

try

{

    Response.Write("Hi, welcome to my custom layout page");

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

 

}

}

</script>

After that, we are placing it in to the Layouts folder C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS, now all SharePoint sites in that SharePoint server can access that page as like this, http://<sitename>/_layouts/mycustom.aspx

Now, If you want to debug the inline code of that layout page, please follow the below steps.

1. Open the physical folder of that particular SharePoint web application. By default it will be in the following location C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\<Port Number>
   
   
2. Open the web.config file from that folder and make debug="true" in the compilation tag.[<compilation
   batch="false"
   debug="true">]
   
   
3. Now open the mycustom.aspx page in  VS.NET IDE and in browser using the appropriate SharePoint site URL [http://<sitename>/_layouts/mycustom.aspx]
   
   
4. Attach the w3wp processor to the debugger and refresh the page in browser – now you can debug the inline code by puting a breakpoint