Question
· Sep 11, 2020

Automatic Watch variables

I come from Visual Studio and now I use mostly Cache 2017 Studio. One debugging functionality I miss dearly is current local variables automatically appearing in the Watch Variables window together with their values. Yes, I can hover or type them myself but both actions take extra time which is especially noticeable when debugging unfamiliar code across many routines. Any Cache settings or plugins to that effect? If not then why not? And if nothing else is there in Cache, what are the alternatives or hacks in this respect?

Anna

Discussion (12)2
Log in or sign up to continue

Hi Robert,

That I know how to do and I do it. What I would like to have this way or other is that the file name appears in the Watch window by itself when I am on the line with this variable, the way Microsoft Visual Studio works, say, with debugging C++.

Anna
P.S German was an unexpected bonus for my one year long studies of it. I could translate about half of German words on your screenshot so not even A1 yet smiley .

Watching variables by typing them as well as hovering works in Cache Studio too. I am interested in automatically appearing (and disappearing) watch variables. Basically the debugger flow in this respect would be:

s a=1 ; When debugger is on this line show value of a automatically; don't show c yet; showing value of b is optional
s b=2 ; When debugger is on this line show value of b automatically; showing  value of a is optional
s c=3 ; When debugger is on this line show value of c automatically; showing  value of b is optional; stop showing a

Now, I don't know the exact Visual Studio rules when they start and stop showing a variable but the current line variables are always shown. No hovering or typing needed.

This is indeed the place for current local variables, thanks! However it has a minor and a major problems in my Cache 2017 instance. The minor problem is that I need to right click in the area to display those variables which disappear again with the next debugging step. So it is sort of semi-automatic. The major problem that this action freezes Studio pretty quickly. Maybe this freezing is fixed in subsequent releases, I don't know.