Enable “Edit & continue” in Tools > Options > Debugging.
Other interesting settings:
Useful when you want to add a breakpoint to every method with a specific name.
Assigning labels to breakpoints could be handy together with the export/import functionality?
Breakpoints in DEBUG mode only:
using System.Diagnostics;
Debug.Fail();
Debug.Assert(true, "Conditional break");
DebuggerStepThroughAttribute: Makes F11 on a member behave like F10DebuggerHiddenAttribute: Hide the member from the debuggerDebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute: Combine the two aboveWhen you need to do some calculations for your assertions put it in a method decorated with the ConditionalAttribute("DEBUG").
Hover over a variable to see its value. Double click on it to change its value. Override ToString() or use the DebuggerDisplayAttribute() to display something better than GetType().FullName for your own classes.
Attributes:
[DebuggerDisplay("Count={count}")]
class Counter
{
[DebuggerBrowsable(DebuggerBrowsableState.Never)]
public int count = 4;
[DebuggerBrowsable(DebuggerBrowsableState.RootHidden)]
public int[] y => new[] {1, 2, 3};
}
More control with DebuggerTypeProxy:
Use this attribute when you need to significantly and fundamentally change the debugging view of a type, but not change the type itself.
Open from menu:
Can see member return values in the Autos window.
Text in red: variable value changed since last evaluation.
Menu: Debug > Windows > Output
Control what is written to the Output Window with Tools > Options > Debugging > Output Window
Debug.Write("msg");
Debug.WriteIf(true, "msg");
Debug.WriteLine("msg");
Debug.WriteLineIf(false, "msg");
Can access local variables and call methods. Even Linq queries are possible here.
One of my favourite bloggers, Phil Haack created the Visual Studio visualizer Encourage.
haacked/encourage: A bit of encouragment added to Visual Studio
ReadableExpressions (download)
agileobjects/ReadableExpressions: Readable views of Expression Trees
DataTable Visualizer (download)
MgSam/DataTableVisualizer: A non-modal, dockable, searchable DataTable visualizer
Image Visualizer (download)
Entity Visualizer (download)
kpol/EntityVisualizer: Display SQL source code generated by Entity Framework
LINQBridgeVs (download)
codingadventures/LINQBridgeVs: Bridge between a Visual Studio debugging session and LINQPad.
Not open source:
Run to click:
Other interesting reads
