Custom debug command in Visual Studio using a Makefile project

I have a Makefile-powered project in Visual Studio 2010 (uses NAnt, in fact, but that's beside the point).

The output of the build process is a .elf file, and I have a separate, non-VStudio debugger which can be run on that .elf file to debug it.

Building works fine, but when I click the 'debug' button (little green triangle), VStudio fails with "Unable to start program 'XXX.elf'. The specified file is an unrecognized or unsupported binary format"

I'm guessing VStudio is just trying to 'run' the .elf as tho开发者_JAVA技巧ugh it were an .exe, and failing.

What I really want VStudio to do is run "my_debugger.exe XXX.elf" when I press the debug button.

I have tried adding a file association with .elf=>my_debugger.exe I have updated PATHEXT appropriately as well, and run VStudio under those changes. Still no luck.

Isn't there somewhere in VStudio where you can specify a custom debug command? I thought there was, but can't find it.

I could just have the build process output a .bat file or something I guess, but this seems silly.

As Jim mentioned you can specify which app to start on run in the project settings (Command field). If you place a debugger there you can pass down your executable as an argument to the debugger being launched (Command Arguments field). This way you can launch the debugger which in turn will launch your executable if the debugger expects any commandline arguments.

MinGW on Windows example:

1. Command: gdb.exe; Command Arguments: Path\ToMyApp\whatever.exe

   will start gdb.exe, gdb.exe will open whatever.exe, parse the debug info and wait for debug instructions.

2. Command: msys.exe; Command Arguments: gdb.exe Path\ToMyApp\whatever.exe

   will start msys.exe, msys.exe will execute "gdb.exe Path\ToMyApp\whatever.exe"

Look at the project properties. Do you have a Debug tab which has a Start Action section giving three choices? Those choices would be: ( ) Start project, (x) Start external program: ... ( ) Start browser with URL.

You can also set the command line arguments and working directory.

Cf. How to: Change the Start Action for Application Debugging