Executing code while debugging

When the execution of the application is stopped, you can easily check the values of the variables by moving the cursor over them. However, sometimes it may be useful to execute some parts of code, such as checking the length of a string. In such a case, you do not need to modify the application code and add some additional variables because you can use the Immediate Window feature that allows you to execute particular lines of code and present results. In this recipe, you will learn how to do this.

Getting ready

To complete this recipe, you need the project with two pages, represented by the MainPage and ProductsPage classes. It is necessary to pass a category identifier while navigating from MainPage to ProductsPage. You should start the debugging of the project and stop it at any breakpoint.

How to do it...

To execute some code while debugging, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Open Immediate Window by navigating to Debug | Window | Immediate from the menu.
2. Type an expression in Immediate Window and press Enter. The calculated result will be presented in the next line, as shown in the following screenshot:
   

How it works...

The example from the screenshot you just saw shows a result of the following expression in Immediate Window:

    formattedText.Length 

It is evaluated using the values of the variables from the current state of debugging. In the example, the formattedText variable is equal to Category #1 - Food & drinks., thus the string has 28 characters and such a result is shown in the window.

The next expression is as follows:

    formattedText.ToUpper() 

It presents the current value of the formattedText variable, but in the uppercase version.

See also

• The Breakpoints-based debugging recipe
• The Step-by-step debugging recipe
• The Logging information while debugging recipe
• The Creating a unit test and Running a set of tests recipes in Chapter 9, Testing and Submission