Some of you may remember a rather handy ExpressionTree debugger visualizer that allowed the visualization of expressions. Basically it was extremely handy and a great way of getting to know the Expression API a bit better.
Unfortunately this was a VS2008 sample, and it does not seem to come with VS2010.
I had not been missing it as I have not been doing much with Expressions, that is until the other day, and I really started to miss it. So I set about trying to get it to work.
Here are the steps you will need to follow to get it to work
- Downloaded VS2008 samples from link above : http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/Visual-Studio-2008-C-d295cdba
- Open contained Expression Debugger Visualse project in VS2010
- Change the projects to target .NET4.0
- Change the references to point to this location for the DebuggerVisualizers.dll : C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\ReferenceAssemblies\v2.0\Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers.dll
- Add a DebuggerVisualizer assembly targeting attribute definition for each and ever subclass (and including) Expression
- Built the projects, checked that I can actually visualize an expression tree. All works fine in modified standalone project from samples
-
Copied the ExpressionTreeVisualizer.dll to the following locations
…\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Visualizers …\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers
Just in case you are curious about what I mean in by Step 5 above, this is what I had to do
[assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(Expression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(BinaryExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(BlockExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(ConditionalExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(ConstantExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(DebugInfoExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(DefaultExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(DynamicExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(GotoExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(IndexExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(InvocationExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(LabelExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(LambdaExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(ListInitExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(LoopExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(MemberExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(MemberInitExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(MethodCallExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(NewArrayExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(NewExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(ParameterExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(RuntimeVariablesExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(SwitchExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(TryExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(TypeBinaryExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")] [assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerForVisualStudio2010), typeof(ExpressionTreeVisualizerObjectSource), Target = typeof(UnaryExpression), Description = "Expression Tree Visualizer")]
Worked a treat and for those of you that are simply to lazy to do this work, here is zip file containing a valid VS2010 copy of a C# project that will build this Expression Debugger Visualizer for you:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2600965/ExpressionTreeVisualizer.zip