Softimage SDK Programmer's Guide > C++ API Development > Building C++ Plug-ins >

# Debugging Plug-ins

## To debug on Windows with Visual C++ .NET:

1. Compile a Debug version of your plug-in and then start Softimage.

2. In Microsoft Visual C++ .NET, click Tools Debug Process.

3. In the Processes dialog box, find XSI.exe in the list of Available Processes.

4. Click XSI.exe and then click Attach.

5. In the Attach to Process dialog box, click the Native program type, and then click OK.

6. Set some breakpoints and start debugging.

## To debug on Linux with the GNU Project Debugger

You can start the GNU Project Debugger (GDB) with Softimage and have pending break points even if the library isn't loaded. The only trick is that the library has to have been loaded once.

- Start Softimage in GDB, load the library, and put in the break point. If you restart Softimage you still have your pending break points.

  Tip

  To force Softimage to pre-load specific DSOs, set the XSI_PRELOAD_DLLS_LIST environment variable to a filename containing list of DSO paths separated by the newline character (\n).