How can I cast a memory address to a user defined type in the VS2019 watch window when debugging assembly?

Question

I'm trying to debug a crash in an exe where my own code is in a dll the exe is loading. I have an assembly only callstack in the exe, and managed to trace back to my own code and find addresses of my own objects that I wish to debug.

However I don't seem to be able to cast the memory addresses to my own types in the watch window: I just get 'identifier "(my type)" is undefined'.

I am guessing this just isn't possible when I'm not in a stack of my own code, but it seems like the debugger could know the types if I could give it more information somehow.

I have tried a few of my own types but all give identifier undefined. I also looked into exported symbols for my types to see if there was something there I could use (based on a suggestion in another SO post), however I think the pdb itself contains the type information I need to point the debugger at.

Of course my pdb is loaded for my own dll, but the watch window seems to not want to look at it when not related stack frames.

Answer 1

Try to specify your dll's module name, like (yourDll.dll!mytype*)0x12345678

See also https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/debugger/context-operator-cpp?view=vs-2019