C / C++ / MFC

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

8-Dec-19 9:42

Ripping my hair out with this one. I develop for some Windows Embedded Compact 7 products where we use VS2008 with add-on SDKs. All service packs applied, I've been using the same setup for the A week or so ago, I did a code merge between two branches and broke on of my applications. In trying to debug the issue, I discovered that no matter where I placed breakpoints, they would immediately go clear with a warning. Mousing over shows the message in the title bar. In doing my debug of the debugger work, I have:

- full clean rebuild;
- delete all PDB, suo and ncb files;
- create a new application;

Nothing corrects the issue. In fact, the last item is a simple dummy hello world dialog app, and it has the same breakpoint issue. So something bad has happened to the installation I'm guessing. In reading all the SO discussions, it appears that most people solve this by making random changes until it starts working.

Does anyone have a definitive explanation or solution for this behavior?

Thanks

Charlie Gilley
<italic>Stuck in a dysfunctional matrix from which I must escape...

"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." B. Franklin, 1783
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759

charlieg8-Dec-19 9:48

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

8-Dec-19 9:48

Seems I fixed this by doing a repair installation on VS2008. Should have thought of that last week.

leon de boer8-Dec-19 13:10

leon de boer

8-Dec-19 13:10

The bigger question is why you are still using VS2008 given all the upgrades above you are free Smile | :)

WIN CE was supported until at least VS2015 from memory.

Update: Ignore that you are trying to debug you have to be on VS2008 my bad

In vino veritas

modified 8-Dec-19 19:27pm.

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

Stefan_Lang8-Dec-19 23:20

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

8-Dec-19 23:20

In principle, you can choose a toolset from an earlier VS installation in any version of VS. If VS 2008 and a newer version are installed, you should be able to select the VS 2008 toolset in the newer VS for the purpose of debugging, or even building executables. Maybe intellisense won't like it, but you can disable intellisense if it gets too annoying.

GOTOs are a bit like wire coat hangers: they tend to breed in the darkness, such that where there once were few, eventually there are many, and the program's architecture collapses beneath them. (Fran Poretto)

leon de boer9-Dec-19 0:52

leon de boer

9-Dec-19 0:52

Pretty sure you have to have a stub running in Win CE target to debug and if I remember correctly it is tied to the VS version. You can definitely compile without issue but I recall issues with debugging.

In vino veritas

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

Stefan_Lang9-Dec-19 1:59

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

9-Dec-19 1:59

Good point. I've never tried this with different target platform applications.

charlieg9-Dec-19 2:05

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

9-Dec-19 2:05

Good question, but it's the nature of embedded systems. My customers are still using systems they purchased in 2006. We're still supporting CE 5.0 and WEC7. Microsoft sort of lost their way after WEC7, and the tools stopped supporting the embedded arena. Microsoft was ripped a new bloody one with this decision, and eventually added support back into the Visual Studio, but the support does not extend back to 5.0 and 7.0. My team dug into this pretty deeply a few years back when we had to deal with this. Do you have knowledge of this changing?

charlieg9-Dec-19 2:09

Re: V2008: All my breakpoints disable. Mouseover shows "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No executable code is associated with this line."

9-Dec-19 2:09

Well, I spoke to soon Sigh | :sigh:

. The re-installation did not fix this completely. My breakpoints are back, but any attempts at compiling is a disaster.

There was an issue from long ago (I even have notes back from 2017 on this) about issues with the default include order. My notes cover about 95% of what needs to be done to correct it, but I think I missed one important key. Sigh.

I'm backing up to a scrubbed system and re-installing everything. VMs are nice.

charlieg8-Jan-20 11:37

Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

8-Jan-20 11:37

I'm going to close this out for posterity's sake.

Part of the problem with having to use VS2008 is that people who make extensions don't test against very old versions, and let's face it, 2008 is a gnarly old thing (but it's better than EVC++). Anyway, a long about December of last year I was trying to track down an issue with stack allocation. One tool I tried to use is Intel's VTune. Once installed, my woes began. I scrubbed everything to recover. Not only did it hose the breakpoints, but things would not compile, etc. I'm a busy guy, and I hate not being able to go back and do a true cause analysis.

New post coming up Smile | :)

Vaclav_6-Dec-19 5:56

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

6-Dec-19 5:56

I could use some very basic assistance solving this problem.
The struct is located inside class function and I am not sure if that is OK.
I am trying to port C code to C++.

Here is the error
I get same error for both test calls to malloc

../src/MODULES/M_BLUEZ/CBLUEZ.cpp:505:14: error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’ to ‘hci_dev_list_req*’ [-fpermissive]
   dl = malloc(HCI_MAX_DEV * sizeof(*dr) + sizeof(*dl));

Here is the offending code snippet

C++

<pre>	struct hci_dev_list_req *dl;
	struct hci_dev_req *dr;
	int dev_id = -1;
	int i, sk, err = 0;


	dl = malloc(HCI_MAX_DEV * sizeof(*dr) + sizeof(*dl));
	if (!dl) {
		err = errno;
		goto done;
	}

	dl = malloc(HCI_MAX_DEV * sizeof(struct hci_dev_req) + sizeof(uint16_t));

Thanks
Cheers

Richard MacCutchan6-Dec-19 6:12

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

6-Dec-19 6:12

Since malloc can only return a void*, it must be cast to the receiving type:

C++

dl = reinterpret_cast<hci_dev_list_req>(malloc(HCI_MAX_DEV * sizeof(*dr) + sizeof(*dl)));

Vaclav_6-Dec-19 8:17

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

6-Dec-19 8:17

Thanks,
just figured that out.
Appreciate your reply anyway.
Is it more appropriate to do

reinterpret_cast<hci_dev_list_req>

or just

(hci_dev_list_req*)

Victor Nijegorodov6-Dec-19 21:39

Victor Nijegorodov

6-Dec-19 21:39

Since you are "porting C code to C++", why don't you replace malloc/free with the new/delete?
Just use C++ allocation operators/methods and you won't need every time cast the returned pointer to the correct type.

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

Richard MacCutchan6-Dec-19 22:02

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

6-Dec-19 22:02

I was going to suggest the use of new, but since he is allocating a single area for two separate structures it would be more complicated.

Stefan_Lang8-Dec-19 22:13

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

8-Dec-19 22:13

I don't think it's two structs, it looks like it's N structs plus a 16 bit number, which maybe could contain the size. If so, it should be converted to a std::vector.

On a side note, sizeof(uint16_t) deserves a place in the coding horror forum Poke tongue | ;-P

Richard MacCutchan8-Dec-19 22:21

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

8-Dec-19 22:21

You are correct. However, given many of OP's previous questions I think it is a bit too soon to introduce him to the new operator.

Richard MacCutchan6-Dec-19 22:01

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

6-Dec-19 22:01

In C++ it is more appropriate to use reinterpret_cast.

CPallini8-Dec-19 22:09

CPallini

8-Dec-19 22:09

Please consider rewriting it in proper C++.
I don't blame the usage of goto in C code, but C++ provides better alternatives.

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

Stefan_Lang8-Dec-19 23:01

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

8-Dec-19 23:01

It's not proper C code to start with, and I'm not even complaining about goto. Given the weird malloc statements it's pretty obvious there's some severe memory clusterfuck taking place. The structs and pointers being defined do not represent what is being stored. dl is being allocated twice, and dr not at all.

Given the the quality of the visible code, I strongly doubt that the code that uses these pointers is accessing the underlying memory correctly.

There's not a chance in hell to turn that into clean C++ if the original C code isn't cleaned up first.

CPallini8-Dec-19 23:35

CPallini

8-Dec-19 23:35

While I agree on your observations, I don't completely agree on your last sentence. If you are able to capture the actual requirements, you don't need to clean-up the original C, in order to produce neat C++ one.

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

Stefan_Lang8-Dec-19 22:47

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

8-Dec-19 22:47

This code looks very, very wrong. It shouldn't be possible to convert this into clean C++ code, because it's not clean C code to start with!

First of all, you have two pointers that require some allocation, but you have two allocations assigned to the same variable, dl. Why do you have two allocations for dl? Where is the allocation for dr?

Second, both dl and dr are declared as pointers to some kind of struct. In clean C code, the implicit meaning of this is that these pointers are pointing to one or more structs of their respective types.

Apparently, you are allocating data structures that contain arrays of data structures along with additional information, without ever declaring that memory structure as data structure. That is completely inaccaptable, unclean code.

You should start by defining your actual data structures in C and clean up your original code. Then you can define arrays as std::vector or std::array, to safe yourself the effort of managing containers, and use new/delete to allocate your actual structs if you do need to allocate them dynamically - chances are, that once you get the container memory auto-managed by C++ classes, you can simply declare those structs on the stack.

Vaclav_9-Dec-19 3:33

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

9-Dec-19 3:33

First, I apologize that I erroneously posted TWO malloc calls.
It woudl have helped if I did not, since it generated unnecessary responses.
I was asking for help on malloc , not on whole snippet.
My apology.
I have "inherited" / using the original C code and have no control over how clean or stupid it is.
Since the original code is "very well documented" my intent is to get rid of the current "library" so I can figure out what the code does step by step.
So far I have part of hciconfig working thanks to the group help with the malloc issue.

Now I have small issue with "invalid pointer" which should go away after I clean up the "struct" assignments.

The "invalid pointer" is reported when the code is actually running, which by itself is "new" one on me. I may ask for help on that one, if I get stuck.

I got no issues learning to use "new" or any other C++ specific features.
Any comments on the contrary are not appreciated.

Cheers

Stefan_Lang9-Dec-19 4:11

Re: Allocating memory for struct pointer - error: invalid conversion from ‘void*’

9-Dec-19 4:11

Thanks for responding. It's good to know a little more context.

As for the "invalid pointer" error, I disagree with the notion of either using a simple C-style type cast, or reinterpret_cast. Both are only workarounds to a severe problem in your code. You're only telling your compiler to shut up, but that doesn't solve the problem that is causing this! All you'd achieve is that the program compiles - and then crashes at run-time!

To properly implement this in C++, the first step is to analyze how that pointer is being used, and what data fields are supposed to be accessed via this pointer. There are two possibilities:

1. all fields being accessed are data members of struct hci_dev_list_req . If this is the case, the malloc() statement from the original code is garbage (both of them). In C++, you should declare dl as follows:

C++

std::array<hci_dev_list, HCI_MAX_DEV> dl;

There's no need for type casts, and no need for allocation or cleaning up - std::array takes care of that.

2. Some fields being accessed are not members of struct hci_dev_list_req . In this case the declaration of dl is garbage! dl is not a pointer to some struct or array of structs. Instead it's a pointer to some undefined struct which, among other things, contains hci_dev_list_req elements. And that is exactly how it should be declared. So, if the original C program does not provide the appropriate struct definition, you should create one yourself.

Vaclav_9-Dec-19 7:57