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Visual C++ Debugger Visualizers

[Important] Important

This section is seriously out of date compared to recent Visual C++ releases.

Let's face it debugger multiprecision numbers is hard - simply because we can't easily inspect the value of the numbers. Visual C++ provides a partial solution in the shape of "visualizers" which provide improved views of complex data structures, these visualizers need to be added to the [Visualizer] section of autoexp.dat located in the Common7/Packages/Debugger directory of your Visual Studio installation. The actual visualizer code is in the sandbox here - just cut and paste the code into your autoexp.dat file.

[Note] Note

These visualizers have only been tested with VC10, also given the ability of buggy visualizers to crash your Visual C++ debugger, make sure you back up autoexp.dat file before using these!!

The first visualizer provides improved views of debug_adaptor:

The next visualizer provides improved views of cpp_int: small numbers are displayed as actual values, while larger numbers are displayed as an array of hexadecimal parts, with the most significant part first.

Here's what it looks like for small values:

And for larger values:

There is also a ~raw child member that lets you see the actual members of the class:

The visualizer for cpp_dec_float shows the first few digits of the value in the preview field, and the full array of digits when you expand the view. As before the ~raw child gives you access to the actual data members:


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