How to extend watches view in VS2013, C/C++

Question

Hello,
Our C/C++ project is using complex types and we have recently migrated from VS2008 to VS2013.
We used a debugger extension (using the Expression Evaluator Add-In API) to do custom display of our types in the debugger/watches.
However, our debugger extension does not appear to work under VS2013.
All the help/data that I could find (Visualizers, attributes...) only seem to apply to managed code or C#...
How do I now do custom display in the debugger in VS2013?
Thanks, Cyrille

Answer 1

Hi Cyrille,
Did you get your expression evaluator to work in VS2013?
I've found my notes that I made when I last tried one...
For VS2008/2010 (I think 2005 will also work, but haven’t tried it)
Modify your autoexp.dat file. You’ll need administrator access to modify it as it’s under the %ProgramFiles% directory. For example, on a 64-bit OS installation, it’s under here for VS2010:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Packages\Debugger
The file already has commented entries for the sample so uncomment them and modify them to the location of the add-in DLL. For example:
_SYSTEMTIME=$ADDIN(C:\MyAddin\Release\EEAddIn.dll,AddIn_SystemTime)
_FILETIME=$ADDIN(C:\MyAddin \Release\EEAddIn.dll,AddIn_FileTime)
For VS 2012/2013 (and hopefully newer versions)
VS2012 dropped the use of autoexp.dat; however, you can still use existing add-ins through the new mechanism - an XML natvis file, like this:
<?xml
version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<AutoVisualizer
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/vstudio/debugger/natvis/2010">
<Type
Name="_FILETIME">
<DisplayString
LegacyAddin="C:\YourPath\YourAddin.dll"
Export="AddIn_FileTime">
</DisplayString>
</Type>
<Type
Name="_SYSTEMTIME">
<DisplayString
LegacyAddin="C:\YourPath\Youraddin.dll"
Export="AddIn_SystemTime">
</DisplayString>
</Type>
</AutoVisualizer>
Save the .natvis file into either of these locations:
%VSINSTALLDIR%\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers (requires admin access)
%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\Visual Studio 2013\Visualizers\
There’s more information on natvis here “Create custom views of native objects in the debugger”:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj620914.aspx