Event descriptions
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
Each type of event has a specific purpose.
Events and the reasons for their use
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
| Activate document events | Occur when the debug engine (DE) wants the IDE to open or bring a document to the foreground. |
| Breakpoint bound or breakpoint error events | Sent when a breakpoint is bound or when a breakpoint cannot bind and an error is returned. |
| Breakpoint unbound events | Occur when a bound breakpoint unbinds from code. |
| Can stop events | Sent to the IDE to determine whether the user would like to stop at a specified point in code. |
| Breakpoint events | Occur when a code or data breakpoint is hit. |
| Document text events | Occur when text in a document is changed. These events are not sent through the IDebugEventCallBack2::Event method. |
| Engine create events | Sent when an engine is first created. |
| Entry point events | Sent when the program being debugged has run its initialization code and reached its first user entry point. |
| Exception events | Sent when a running program hits an exception. |
| Expression evaluation complete events | Sent when asynchronous expression evaluation is complete. |
| Find Symbol events | Sent whenever the DE needs to ask the user to find symbols for a module. |
| Load complete events | Sent only when the initial program load is complete and the first code is about to run in the program. |
| Message events | Sent when messages are sent to users. |
| Module load events | Sent when a new module is loaded or unloaded. |
| Output string events | Sent when the program writes debug output. |
| Create and destroy events | Sent to announce the creation or destruction of processes, programs, properties, sessions, and threads so the Visual Studio IDE can keep track of the state of the programs being debugged. |
| Step complete events | Sent when a step is complete. |
| Thread name change events | Sent when the user changes the name of a thread. |
| Program name change events | Sent when the user changes the name of a program. |