What special variables available in Visual Studio watch window in .NET?

Question

I just learned about $exception in the VS.NET watch window for .NET yesterday. This shows the current exception that has been thrown and is a big time-saver in not needing to find the little exclamation point icon and hover over it.

What other special variables are there in the watch window?

(Note: this question is about .NET, not C++.)

Answer 1

Supported Pseudovariables in Visual Studio for .NET debugging:

• $exception: Displays information on the last exception. If no exception has occurred, evaluating $exception displays an error message. In Visual C# only, when the Exception Assistant is disabled, $exception is automatically added to the Locals window when an exception occurs.
• $user: Displays a structure with account information for the account running the application. For security reasons, the password information is not displayed.

The following only apply to Visual Basic:

• $delete or $$delete: Deletes an implicit variable that was created in the Immediate window. The syntax is $delete, variable or $$delete, variable.
• $objectids or $listobjectids: Displays all active Object IDs as children of the specified expression. The syntax is $objectid, expression or $listobjectids, expression.
• $N#: Displays object with Object ID equal to N.
• $dynamic: Displays the special Dynamic View node for an object that implements the IDynamicMetaObjectProvider. Interface. The syntax is $dynamic, object. This feature applies only to code that uses .NET Framework version 4. See Dynamic View.

Answer 2

If you right click any variable in the Watch window, you can create an Object ID. This will give you a number, e.g. the first object ID will be 1#.

The Object ID represents the specific instance. The instance can then be watched in the Watch window just like a regular variable, but you can keep watching the instance even when local reference go out of scope. When it eventually gets garbage collected you will lose access to it.