Special QuickWatch for a DataSet

Prize winner in Competition "C# Apr 2004"

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Introduction

I am working on an ERP that is dealing with datasets a lot, and every time I need to know the contents of the dataset during debugging I try to make a quick watch but it has caused me headaches so I decided to make my own dataset quick watch.

How does it work?

I wrote my code using C#. I started by creating an Extensibility Projects from VS.NET's New Project menu. The wizard shows up and now the main idea behind this addin is how to pass an object from the VS.NET debug mode to the add-in. I did a lot of search but I did not find anything. The only way to know what is going in the debug mode is to use DTE.Debugger.GetExpression.

How did I insert my button in the context menu?

The wizard adds the created button (Command) in the Tools menu so I need to change the Tools to the context menu and to do that I replaced the Tools with Code Window, noting that the status for the command is (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusUnsupported +(int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusInvisible to show it just when I need it:

// add the command to the right click context menu 
// note that when I insert the command it's inserted disabled
// "(int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusUnsupported +
// (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusInvisible"

Command command = commands.AddNamedCommand ( addInInstance, DSWatchNode ,
        DataSet Quick Watch, DataSet Quick Watch, true, 60, ref contextGUIDS,
        (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusUnsupported +
        (int)vsCommandStatus.vsCommandStatusInvisible ); 
CommandBar commandBar = (CommandBar)commandBars[Code Window]; 
CommandBarControl commandBarControl = command.AddControl(commandBar, 1);

I have found a great article talking about addin and context menu in code project written by Erick Sgarbi called strongly typed collection and it was very useful

How to know if the selected test is a dataset?

After capturing the selected text i can use it as an expression in the Debugger.GetExpression() method of the application and evaluate anything I want. Now I will try to cast the selected text to dataset by evaluating the following:

string fileExtintion;
TextSelection _TextSelection;

_TextSelection = (TextSelection) applicationObject.ActiveDocument.Selection;

str = _TextSelection.Text;

fileExtintion=applicationObject.ActiveDocument.FullName.Substring(
                      applicationObject.ActiveDocument.FullName.Length-2 ) ;

switch(fileExtintion.ToLower() )
    {
    case "cs":
        isDataSetExpression="(System.Data.DataSet)"+str+".Tables";
        getXmlExpression="((System.Data.DataSet)"+str+").GetXml()";
        break;

    case"vb":
        isDataSetExpression="ctype("+ str +",System.Data.DataSet).Tables";
        getXmlExpression="ctype("+ str +",System.Data.DataSet).GetXml()";
        break;
    }

//cast the selcted text to dataset 
expr = debugger.GetExpression(isDataSetExpression,true,500);

if (expr.Value.IndexOf("error:")>-1)
{
    System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("This is not a DataSet!");
    return;
}

If the expr object does not have error message it will be a dataset:

if (expr.Value.IndexOf(error:)>-1) 
{
    System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(this is not DataSet!!);
    return;
}

How to get the content of the dataset?

I could not get the object from the debugging project so I have to know the selected dataset XML contents by evaluating selectetDataSet.GetXML.

Using the code

Run the add-in setup file and after installing the add-in you will be able to watch any dataset by selecting it in the debug mode and choosing "DataSet Quick Watch" from right-click menu.