BizTalk Experts

When you have a pipeline components created and you like to test the working of it, create a new Biztalk Server Project for testing purposes. Copy the pipeline components libraries to the next directory: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\Pipeline Components”. Create a new pipeline and add the created pipeline components to the toolbar of Visual Studio. Insert the pipeline component in the pipeline and save your test project.

So there are several ways to test your pipeline components and you have to decide for you own what suits you the best. I’m now going to describe two ways of debugging a pipeline component. One possibility is installing a ‘dummy’ orchestrations bound to this pipeline component and push some messages through, and the second possibility is to use the pipeline.exe tool.

Debugging with Dummy Orchestration
So your test project is created, you have a dummy orchestration with a receive and/or sendport and all the pipeline component libraries are in the right place. Now your ready to test your pipeline component using a dummy orchestration. Install your project, bind your orchestration to a receive or sendport with your pipeline component and start the orchestration and the Biztalk Application service.

Now attach your Visual Studio with the Biztalk Process (BTSNTSVC.exe). You can do this by selecting the next menu in Visual Studio: ‘Debug\Processes’

So now you can just put in some breakpoints in your pipeline component code and put a message in the receive location. Now you can step right through your code.

Debugging with Pipeline.exe tool
This tool, called Pipeline.EXE, comes with the installation of Biztalk Server and it simulates the execution of a pipeline component. So now you can just add breakpoints in the code and step through your code.

Open the project properties of the pipeline component project, and select the Debugging tab. In Debug mode, select “Program”, and click the “Apply” button. In the property “Start Application”, use the path to the pipeline.exe tool.  (‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\SDK\Utilities\PipelineTools\Pipeline.exe’)

In the command line, use the next parameters: ‘C:\YourPipeline.btp -d C:\InboundMessage.xml -c -m C:\%messageid%.xml’ (choose the right parameters for your solution!!)