Inspect variable values and objects

Last modified: 24 May 2024

When the program is suspended, you can inspect variables and arguments in the context of the currently selected frame: view their values and edit them on the fly. To change the context, select another frame on the Frames pane.

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You can also track specific objects rather than values of the variables and results of expressions.

View variables values

There are several ways of viewing variables values.

Variables pane

The default way to examine variable values is use the Variables pane of the Debug window. Note that if a variable is of a complex type, you can expand the corresponding node in the pane to see values that the variable contains.

Sometimes, you may notice that some variables change their color. This happens when the variable value has changed since the last evaluation.

JetBrains Rider: updated variable highlighted in the Debug window

You can quickly navigate from a variable on the Variables pane to its declaration in the source code by pressing or choosing Jump to Source from the context menu.

Inline with code

Another way to see variable values is to look at the code in the editor. By default, JetBrains Rider shows the values of variables at the end of the lines where these variables are declared. It also shows the value returned from a function next to its return statement as long as this function is in the context.

JetBrains Rider debugger: Inline values in the editor

Modified objects are displayed with a different color.

You can also click value hints to open the corresponding object in a popup, where you can examine object properties and edit the values or use the variable that contains the value to form an expression for an inline watch.

JetBrains Rider debugger: Edit values inline

If you want to disable showing values inline with code, clear the Show Values Inline checkbox on the Build, Execution, Deployment | Debugger | Data Views page of JetBrains Rider settings .

Code tooltips

When Show value tooltip is enabled on the Build, Execution, Deployment | Debugger | Data Views settings page  , you can hover over variables to see their values. If the value of a variable or an expression contains child elements, clicking the Add button expands the node and displays all children.

JetBrains Rider: Value tooltips for variables when debugging

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You can also use editor tooltips to evaluate expressions.

Function return values

The Variables pane will display the return value of any method that is called in the current context. This is useful when the result of a method call is not stored in a local variable, for example, when using method chaining.

Note that function return values are not available for Unity and other Mono-based projects.

Search through values of complex objects

While values of strings or integers are immediately visible in all debugger views, complex objects often contain hundreds of different values hidden in a hierarchical structure.

To find a specific value in a complex object that is currently in scope, focus the variables view in the Debug window and start typing. If the desired value is not found, click Search inside collapsed nodes and start typing again.

Search through values of complex objects in the Debug window

Customize debugger presentation of complex objects (Pin to top)

If a type neither has a meaningful ToString() override nor is it annotated with the [DebuggerDisplay] attribute, then the presentation of objects of this type in debugger views could be quite uninformative. In Rider, you can customize presentation of such objects by pinning selected members.

In the example below, an object of Album class is presented with its Title and Price fields:

JetBrains Rider: Customizing debugger presentation of complex objects (pinned items)

Pinned items will override object presentation even if it has ToString() or is annotated with the [DebuggerDisplay] attribute.

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Another way to distinguish between objects in the debugger views is to track objects by ID.

Modify variables and objects

You can edit variables and objects available in the context of the suspended program. This may be convenient, for example, when you want to reproduce a particular context for the debugged function.

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Changing variables values may lead to inconsistent results and break program execution.

Compare variable values with the clipboard

During debugging, you can compare variable values with the value in the clipboard. This may be especially helpful when debugging strings.

The comparison result will be displayed in the Diff Viewer.

See also

External Links