Debugging Lists in Visual Studio - viewing, sorting, and exporting

Have you ever tried to debug a list of items in C#? Scrolling through the list of items to find the right one can be tedious. As of Visual Studio 17.2, though, we now have a much better way to visualize and export List data in the debugger.

[hferdinand]

This is a way better visualization than scrolling! Thanks for sharing Tim!

[eawig]

I'm a big fan of this type of video: where you are highlighting a great new feature that I might never have noticed. Thanks!

[pavfrang]

Until now, the String override was crucial in debugging, in order to view it immediately in Debug mode. But that export/sort/preview functionality is definitely a much better alternative!
Thank you Tim!

[rinzler]

I am actually debugging a complex data model right now, and going mad using the intellesense functionality to view data - and then the universe delivered this video into my recommendations.

[evangreavu]

Yay this is so good, I always used to have to take screenshots while hovering elements in a list if I needed to compare elements, which was really annoying especially for long lists.

[DaNoob_]

Thanks for sharing Tim. Definitely going to use this! 😊

[flaviuscristianluca]

Thank you for the video, Tim. I really like the 10 Minutes Training videos

What I don't like about the new Visualizer Window is that it doesn't allow me to use F10 and/or F11 to continue debugging

If I remember correctly, you probably mentioned about Watch in one of your first in-depth videos about debugging

I like to use the Watch (Debug -> Windows -> Watch), because I can add the variables of the current scope and continue debugging while keeping track of the changes
The properties can also be pinned and shown when watching the list

[krisculin]

OMG! I always stay up to date with VS (I don't use preview though) and I had no idea this was available since 17.2. This is game changing. Thank you for sharing this! MSFT needs to do a better job of making these features better known.

[ky]

This will be very helpful. Thanks for posting.

[veljkoradovic]

Great video and a great tip! Thanks Tim!

[pawelpawel]

That is amazing tool and I am definitely going to try it out. I didn’t know about it and I have lost so much time debugging my long lists that it’s not even funny. Thanks for share it.

[craigsimon]

I made good use of this right away. Thanks.

[cdouillet]

Very useful thank you! Is it possible to view a column for item index in the list?

[bjarnenilsson]

I was just thinking wouldnt it be better to store berth date ( or possible burth year if bithhdate is covered by some privacy regulation) instead of age, this whey you do it now evry record has to be changed once a year vs having a calculation give younthe correct age on request. Or is thar cakculation done on the backmend?

[johnathanbernard]

I've always used the DebuggerDisplay attribute

[larsp]

Adding the [DebuggerDisplay()] attribute on your classes also greatly improves your debugging(lists) experience…

[OgorkiPrzyszloscia]

what about a list in a list? how does it work in that window?

[rinzler]

I've used "Console1" app quite a few times. 😂

[AnySL]

Nice. I wonder how it looks if person had a complex object within. Lets say it had a person object within that was property name Parent (mom, dad)

[Coder-evxc]

Be honest with me Tim. Are developer jobs in danger because of AI?