Microsoft® Script Debugger is a specialized debugger designed specifically to handle the demands of ActiveX and Internet scripting. Until now, there hasn't been a tool available to debug these specialized scripts.

What Can Script Debugger Do for You?

If you look at the Color Blender sample included in this release, you will notice that the Table.htm file changes during execution. Microsoft Script Debugger is able to accept and display these changes, which are dynamic. Most standard debuggers cannot.

Standard debuggers are usually integrated into a development environment. The development environment makes assumptions about the location and structure of source files. When you debug a script, however, the source files may not even exist when you are ready to debug. And even if they do exist, it is possible that they will be removed from memory and be regenerated or restructure themselves in the course of their existence. Standard debuggers are unable to handle such dynamic events.

Also, scripts are interpreted and not compiled, so there is no way for a compiler to generate debugging information for a debugger to rely on. The information must be retrieved from the language interpreter during execution. This is what Script Debugger does.

How Is Microsoft Script Debugger Different?

So, how does the debugging environment differ?

Basically, a communications structure has been created that allows scripting engines, Internet Explorer, and the debugger to exchange debugging information during execution of a script.

Script Debugger is language neutral. It lets the scripting engine handle any expression evaluation and the highlighting of syntax. Script Debugger then simply accepts the information and displays it. It knows nothing about the language itself.

The version of Microsoft Internet Explorer included with this release has been modified to communicate with Script Debugger. It lets Script Debugger know all the files, and their structure, that make up the current state of the browser. It also shows scripts in the context of the HTML page of which they are a part.

For details on how Microsoft Script Debugger behaves differently than standard debuggers, see How Microsoft Script Debugger Works for usage differences.