Improve speed of own debug visualizer for Delphi 2010

Question

I wrote Delphi debug visualizer for TDataSet to display values of current row, source + screenshot: http://delphi.netcode.cz/text/tdataset-debug-visualizer.aspx . Working good, but very slow. I did some optimalization (how to get fieldnames) but still for only 20 fields takes 10 seconds to show - very bad.

Main problem seems to be slow IOTAThread90.Evaluate used by main code shown below, this procedure cost most of time, line with ** about 80% time. FExpression is name of TDataset in code.

procedure TDataSetViewerFrame.mFillData;
var
 iCount: Integer;
 I: Integer;
 //  sw: TStopwatch;
 s: string;
 begin
 //  sw := TStopwatch.StartNew;
   iCount := StrToIntDef(Evaluate(FExpression+'.Fields.Count'), 0);
   for I := 0 to iCount - 1 do
   begin
     s:= s + Format('%s.Fields[%d].FieldName+'',''+', [FExpression, I]);
  //  FFields.Add(Evaluate(Format('%s.Fields[%d].FieldName', [FExpression, I])));
     FValues.Add(Evaluate(Format('%s.Fields[%d].Value', [FExpression, I]))); //**
   end;
 if s<> '' then
   Delete(s, length(s)-4, 5);
 s := Evaluate(s);
 s:= Copy(s, 2, Length(s) -2);
 FFields.CommaText := s;
{  sw.Stop;
 s := sw.Elapsed;
 Application.MessageBox(Pchar(s), '');}
end;

Now I have no idea how to improve performance.

Answer 1

That Evaluate needs to do a surprising amount of work. The compiler needs to compile it, resolving symbols to memory addresses, while evaluating properties may cause functions to be called, which needs the debugger to copy the arguments across into the debugee, set up a stack frame, invoke the function to be called, collect the results - and this involves pausing and resuming the debugee.

I can only suggest trying to pack more work into the Evaluate call. I'm not 100% sure how the interaction between the debugger and the evaluator (which is part of the compiler) works for these visualizers, but batching up as much work as possible may help. Try building up a more complicated expression before calling Evaluate after the loop. You may need to use some escaping or delimiting convention to unpack the results. For example, imagine what an expression that built the list of field values and returned them as a comma separated string would look like - but you would need to escape commas in the values themselves.