How do I get SysInternals DebugView to display indents?

Question

I'm using SysInternals DebugView with my .Net application. I've tried using the Indent feature of the .Net Debug class, but DebugView just seems to represent this as a NewLine character.

Does anyone know if it's possible to get DebugView to display the indents?

Sample Code:

static void Main (string[] args)
{
    Debug.WriteLine("Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);

    Debug.Indent();
    Debug.WriteLine("Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);
    Debug.Indent();
    Debug.WriteLine("Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);
    Debug.Indent();
    Debug.WriteLine("Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);

    Debug.Unindent();
    Debug.WriteLine("Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);
    Debug.Unindent();
    Debug.WriteLine("Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);
    Debug.Unindent();
    Debug.WriteLine("Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);
}

Output:

[9632] Indent level: 0
[9632]
[9632] Indent level: 1
[9632]
[9632]
[9632] Indent level: 2
[9632]
[9632]
[9632]
[9632] Indent level: 3
[9632]
[9632]
[9632] Indent level: 2
[9632]
[9632] Indent level: 1
[9632] Indent level: 0

What I'd Like to see:

[9632] Indent level: 0
[9632]   Indent level: 1
[9632]     Indent level: 2
[9632]       Indent level: 3
[9632]     Indent level: 2
[9632]   Indent level: 1
[9632] Indent level: 0

Rik

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 10 '11 at 08:22

But wait! It looks like it is possible. You just need to turn off the Force Carriage Returns feature on the Options menu.

I discovered the answer here: http://forum.sysinternals.com/topic26797_post131196.html#131196

Here's the text:

By default, the Force Carriage Returns option is enabled, which displays every string passed to a debug output function on a separate line, whether or not that text is terminated with a carriage return. If you disable that option in the Options menu, DebugView buffers output text in memory and adds it to the display only when a carriage return is encountered or the memory buffer is filled (approximately 4192 characters). This allows applications and drivers to build output lines with multiple invocations of debug output functions.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 07 '11 at 11:41

1

I don't think you can make DebugView do this way. It captures individual output writes, so it seems that when you do Debug.WriteLine Debug class outputs indentation space individually as separate OutputDebugString calls. What you definitely still can do is adding indentation space yourself and have your writes mapped into single underlying API calls:

string currentIndent = "  ";
// ...
Debug.WriteLine(currentIndent + "Indent level: {0}", Debug.IndentLevel);

answered Oct 07 '11 at 11:41

Roman R.

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I see. So the DebugViewer outputs each call to OutputDebugString to a new line. That makes sense now. I think I'll probably have to implement some variation on your idea here where I manage the indent. – RikRak Oct 07 '11 at 14:09

How do I get SysInternals DebugView to display indents?

2 Answers2