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My question is this: If I know that a property of the object has value "example", how can I find which property it is, without checking every possible property of the object when I debug?

I think I'm a bit unclear. For example, I have an object of ImagePart. When I debug, I want to see the value of TargetName. To do that, I should go withe the mouse over the object, then over Non-Public members. But, if the value I wanna see is much deeper, I have trouble finding it.

petko_stankoski
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  • Maybe you need to add all of the properties to the watch window and see for the occurrence – V4Vendetta Nov 07 '11 at 08:44
  • I don't think there is anything built in, but have you considered a macro? Maybe there is a way, in the debugger, of iterating over a list of a types fields/properties? – Richard Nov 07 '11 at 08:45
  • If having the address of it helps check out CheatEngine. But it probably isn't anything near what you're looking for. – SBoss Nov 07 '11 at 08:47

3 Answers3

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If I understood correctly, you have an object with a lot of properties, then you can make a method in that class that would 'scan' all the properties using C# reflection.

Create a method like this in the class of the object you want to analyze:

    string PropertyThatHasCertainValue(object Value)
    {
        Type myType = this.GetType();

        while(myType != typeof(object))
        {
            foreach (PropertyInfo property_info in myType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic))
            {
                if (object.Equals(property_info.GetValue(this, null), Value))
                {
                    return property_info.Name;
                }
            }
            myType = myType.BaseType;
        }
        return "No property has this value";
    }

Then in the watch, add a following watch:

MyObjectInstance.PropertyThatHasCertainValue(ValueYouAreLookingFor)

Note that you might want to use something else but object as a parameter, to make it easier to type in the watch, but VS watch Window you can easily type not only numbers and strings but also enums. Visual Studio watches are extremely powerful, they will almost always evaluate the expression correctly.

I have added the while loop to go recursively through all the parents. BindingFlags.NonPublic will return all private and protected methods of the class, but not the private methods of base classes. Navigating through all the base classes, until hitting Object will solve this.

zmilojko
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  • Note that this code doesn't dig deeper in case the property value is an object; this won't work in case the "property is much deeper" as the OP said. – Omer Raviv Nov 07 '11 at 09:14
  • @OmerRaviv I do not see why it wouldn't work, as long as you are able to define such object in the watch (so it should be done in a single line). For instance you can type `MyObjectInstance.PropertyThatHasCertainValue(new MyObjectWithUsefulConstructor("enough parameters to construct object's deep properties"))`. VS Watches are extemely powerful (talking about newer VSs, like 2008/2010). – zmilojko Nov 07 '11 at 09:21
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With VS 2010, you can pin-UP the property. So next time, when you hit the debug point, the corresponding value will be automatically highlighted. For more : http://weblogs.asp.net/pawanmishra/archive/2009/12/26/another-vs-2010-feature-pin-up.aspx

Pawan Mishra
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  • This doesn't answer OP's question – Omer Raviv Nov 07 '11 at 09:16
  • @Omer : How do you know that the above comment doesn't answer his question. Most of the initial responses have been around adding quickWatch/watch window. If they too were not correct, then I would say the question itself is ambiguous. I saw your answer, in the link, you have provided in your answer. Even there, you are doing something similar, its just that you have used some other tool. If your answer is correct, then I can say use MOLE(http://weblogs.asp.net/pawanmishra/archive/2009/12/13/mole-visual-studio-visualizer.aspx). – Pawan Mishra Nov 07 '11 at 09:40
  • Please don't be offended - your blog post is excellent! But if I understand correctly OP's question was, "When debugging, how can I find a property based on its name or its value?". Pinning only helps if you've already found the property you're interested in. I agree that using Mole is another perfectly valid answer to OP's question. – Omer Raviv Nov 07 '11 at 10:30
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A similar question has been asked here. Please see my answer there: the Search feature I was talking about works for property values just as it does for property names.

Community
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Omer Raviv
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