What are a good No OP operation for vb.net?

Question

Something we can just put break point on while making sure it doesn't do anything else.

In c, that would be while(false);

What to do in vb.net?

How placing a breakpoint on an artificial no-op statement is different from placing a breakpoint on any other statement? — GSerg, Feb 24 '13 at 12:51
Just place the breakpoint on the statement after the one you don't want anything to execute after. — Oded, Feb 24 '13 at 12:58

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 24 '13 at 14:57

10

If you always need it to break there you can put Stop or Debugger.Break()

answered Feb 24 '13 at 14:57

pinkfloydx33

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I want to unbreak easily. – user4951 Sep 26 '19 at 18:12

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 02 '14 at 08:48

If you really want a No-Op for some reason (could this turn into a contest for the most ineffectual single line of code?!), how about these?

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1) - 1ms is unlikely to have a huge impact outside of a loop

Debug.Write("") - doesn't appear to output anything.

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 09 '17 at 14:41

There is a legitimate use-case for this. When a temporary breakpoint is required after the statement of interest and this is the last line inside an if statement, an extra no-op type statement is required to place the temporary breakpoint on. In this case I use:

If someCondition >0 Then

    doSomething
    Space (1)    'Dummy line to place breakpoint
End If

This returns a string containing one space, but does not assign it to anything. I use it in VBA, but it's also supported in .net

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 09 '20 at 19:03

My two cents...

You can combine any series of commands onto one line with colons:

If False Then : End If
Select Case False : Case Else : End Select

I've also made it into a sub. Then it gets a recognizable name of own:

'Definition...
Public Sub noop () 'Or Private, Protected, etc.
End Sub

'Usage...
Sub Main()
    If sometest Then
        noop
    Else
        MsgBox "test is false"
    End If
End Sub

Abdusalam Ben Haj · Answer 5 · 2013-02-27T00:27:49.430

1

Very strange question, you could place a BreakPoint about anywhere in the code. But here are some useless lines :

 Do While False
 Loop

 While False
 End While

Even the following :

 Dim hello = Nothing

Or this :

 Format("", "")

edited Feb 27 '13 at 00:27

answered Feb 24 '13 at 12:59

Abdusalam Ben Haj

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can you do it in one line? – user4951 Feb 24 '13 at 13:01
@JimThio How about the second suggestion? – Abdusalam Ben Haj Feb 24 '13 at 13:03
`Dim hello As Object = Nothing` should work without an actual memory assignment; just an extra local on the stack. – Mark Hurd Feb 27 '13 at 00:23
No `Dim hello = Nothing` is not allowed; it doesn't know what type to give to `hello`. – Mark Hurd Feb 27 '13 at 00:45
@MarkHurd No it's fine. If you do this the compiler would assume its an object. – Abdusalam Ben Haj Feb 27 '13 at 00:47
No, I tested it. It fails. – Mark Hurd Feb 27 '13 at 00:52
@MarkHurd that happens when [Option Infer](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb384665.aspx) is set to off while [Option Strict](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/zcd4xwzs.aspx) is On. – Abdusalam Ben Haj Feb 27 '13 at 01:06
Sorry, I was caught by the LINQPad syntax checker acting differently to the actual compiler. I'm sure it previously broke as a compiler error, but it is now compiling fine and just showing as a red squiggle underline... – Mark Hurd Feb 27 '13 at 03:15

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 26 '19 at 09:42

1

A no-op statement is also useful as an aid to document code nicely and make it more easily understandable. You could for example put in a statement like A = A.

For example:

If MyNumber => 100 then A = A
Else:

answered Sep 26 '19 at 09:42

Michael

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 08 '20 at 12:03

I know this is an old query, but for what it is worth, my preferred solution to the original question is Debug.Assert (vbTrue)

If you wanted, you could use a variable instead of vbTrue and then enable/disable all breakpoints in your code by changing one variable

Dim bDisableBreakpoints as Boolean: bDisableBreakpoints = vbTrue
'your code here
Debug.Assert (bDisableBreakpoints)
'rest of your code

Simply change bDisableBreakpoints to vbFalse and the breakpoints will be set wherever you have used Debug.Assert

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 08 '20 at 13:56

0

My personal favorite is

dim b=1

Then I put a breakpoint there.

answered Oct 08 '20 at 13:56

user4951

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What are a good No OP operation for vb.net?

8 Answers8