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When debugging XML, it's a pain the butt to constantly click on the Text/XML visualizers in the Watch Window to see the full value of an XML string variable. The "Watch" windows in Visual Studio seem to be constrained to one line.
Is there a way to constantly "watch" the value of a multi-line variable when debugging? Doesn't have to be in a watch window i suppose, but I want to see the value of an XML string, and the visualizer boxes are modal.
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It's available from Debug | Windows | Watch | Watch 1 or Ctrl + Alt + W + 1. There are 4 watch windows in Visual Studio, which you can use in different contexts (Watch 1, Watch 2, etc.). Any expression can be entered into the watch window.
You should first start the application in debugging mode by using F5 and then open this window. This is a shortcut utility to open other debugging windows; for instance, the Breakpoint window by writing '>bl', the call stack window by writing'>callstack', and so on.
One Visual Studio tool for debugging is the 'QuickWatch' window. This window gives information about the current value of a variable or expression. We can also use it to evaluate any expression or even change the value of a variable (Liberty & MacDonald, 2009; Stephens, 2014).
It's not very pretty, but one way I have dealt with that is to put the string address in a memory window, which can show text characters. Open one of the memory windows from the Debug menu: Debug\Windows\Memory. You can then type in the address or the variable name or just double click on the variable and "drag" it up to the address field of the memory window.
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