I have a VBScript that opens a Visio file in the background by using Visio.Application in invisible mode.
Set Visioapp = CreateObject("Visio.Application")
Visioapp.Visible = False
Set Visio = Visioapp.Documents.Open(VisioFile)
This works fine except when I try to open a file that generates a pop-up while I'm processing it. If that happens, the application would show an alert to notify the user but since the application is invisible to the user (or running without a user present), the script just hangs indefinitely, waiting for input that won't be coming.
If I were writing VBA code for Excel or Word I could use Application.DisplayAlerts = False (and/or possibly DisplayEvents). But in my VBScript the Visio application doesn't have that property. Visioapp.DisplayAlerts = False will give me the error "Object doesn't support this property or method".
How do I suppress the popups generated by a Visio application opened from VBScript?
Summarizing the comments from #Dave and #Noodles, the Visio Application object does not have a property DisplayAlerts like other Office applications have. Instead it provides a property AlertResponse that allows you to define whether the application should respond to alerts with OK, Cancel, Abort, Retry, …
To have the application respond with OK to all alerts change your code to something like this:
Set Visioapp = CreateObject("Visio.Application")
visioapp.AlertResponse = vbOk
Set Visio = Visioapp.Documents.Open(VisioFile)
Note that in this case you can use the symbolic constants that VBScript already provides (vbOk, vbCancel, vbAbort, vbRetry, …). For application-specific constants (e.g. the SaveFlags for the SaveAsEx method) this won't work, though. In those cases you'll have to either use the numeric value:
Visio.SaveAsEx "C:\path\to\output.vsd", 1
or define the constant in your script:
Const visSaveAsRO = 1
...
Visio.SaveAsEx "C:\path\to\output.vsd", visSaveAsRO
In Visual Studio debug mode it's possible to hover over variables to show their value and then right-click to "Copy", "Copy Expression" or "Copy Value".
In case the variable is an object and not just a basic type, there's a + sign to expand and explore the object. It there a way to copy all that into the clipboard?
In the immediate window, type
?name_of_variable
This will print out everything, and you can manually copy that anywhere you want, or use the immediate window's logging features to automatically write it to a file.
UPDATE: I assume you were asking how to copy/paste the nested structure of the values so that you could either search it textually, or so that you can save it on the side and then later compare the object's state to it. If I'm right, you might want to check out the commercial extension to Visual Studio that I created, called OzCode, which lets you do these thing much more easily through the "Search" and "Compare" features.
UPDATE 2 To answer #ppumkin's question, our new EAP has a new Export feature allows users to Export the variable values to Json, XML, Excel, or C# code.
Full disclosure: I'm the co-creator of the tool I described here.
You can run below code in immediate window and it will export to an xml file the serialized XML representation of an object:
(new System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer(obj.GetType())).Serialize(new System.IO.StreamWriter(#"c:\temp\text.xml"), obj)
Source: Visual Studio how to serialize object from debugger
Most popular answer from https://stackoverflow.com/a/23362097/2680660:
With any luck you have Json.Net in you appdomain already. In which
case pop this into your Immediate window:
Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(someVariable)
Edit: With .NET Core 3.0, the following works too:
System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Serialize(someVariable)
There is a extension called Object Exporter that does this conveniently.
http://www.omarelabd.net/exporting-objects-from-the-visual-studio-debugger/
Extension: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/c6a21c68-f815-4895-999f-cd0885d8774f
You can add a watch for that object, and in the watch window, expand and select everything you want to copy and then copy it.
By using attributes to decorate your classes and methods you can have a specific value from your object display during debugging with the DebuggerDisplay attribute e.g.
[DebuggerDisplay("Person - {Name} is {Age} years old")]
public class Person
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
}
I always use:
string myJsonString = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(<some object>);
Then I copy the string value which unfortunately also copies the back slashes.
To remove the backlashes go here:
https://www.w3schools.com/jsref/tryit.asp?filename=tryjsref_replace
Then within the <p id="demo">Visit Microsoft!</p> element replace the text with the text you copied.
then replace the var res = str.replace("Microsoft", "W3Schools"); line with
var res = str.replace(/\\/g, '')
Run these new changes but don't forget to click the "try it" button on the right.
Now you should have all the text of the object in json format that you can drop in a json formatter like http://jsonformatter.org or to create a POCO you can now use http://json2csharp.com/
ObjectDumper.NET
This is an awesome way!
You probably need this data for a unit test, so create a Sandbox.cs temporary test or you can create a Console App.
Make sure to get NuGet package, ObjectDumper.NET, not ObjectDumper.
Run this test (or console app)
View test output or text file to get the C# initializer code!
Code:
[TestClass]
public class Sandbox
{
[TestMethod]
public void GetInitializerCode()
{
var db = TestServices.GetDbContext();
var list = db.MyObjects.ToList();
var literal = ObjectDumper.Dump(list, new DumpOptions
{
DumpStyle = DumpStyle.CSharp,
IndentSize = 4
});
Console.WriteLine(literal); // Some test runners will truncate this, so use the file in that case.
File.WriteAllText(#"C:\temp\dump.txt", literal);
}
}
I used to use Object Exporter, but it is 5 years old and no longer supported in Visual Studio. It seems like Visual Studio Extensions come and go, but let's hope this NuGet package is here to stay! (Also it is actively maintained as of this writing.)
Google led me to this 8-year-old question and I ended up using ObjectDumper to achieve something very similar to copy-pasting debugger data. It was a breeze.
I know the question asked specifically about information from the debugger, but ObjectDumper gives information that is basically the same. I'm assuming those who google this question are like me and just need the data for debugging purposes and don't care whether it technically comes from the debugger or not.
I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I wrote a JSON implementation for serializing an object, if you prefer to have JSON output. Uses Newtonsoft.Json reference.
private static void WriteDebugJSON (dynamic obj, string filePath)
{
using (StreamWriter d = new StreamWriter(filePath))
{
d.Write(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(obj));
}
}
I've just right clicked on the variable and selected AddWatch, that's bring up watch window that consists of all the values. I selected all and paste it in a text a text editor, that's all.
Object Dumper is a free and open source extension for Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.
"Dump as" commands are available via context menu in the Code and Immediate windows.
It's exporting objects to:
C# object initialization code,
JSON,
Visual Basic object initialization code,
XML,
YAML.
I believe that combined with the Diff tool it can be helpful.
I'm the author of this tool.
if you have a list and you want to find a specific variable:
In the immediate window, type
myList.Any(s => s.ID == 5062);
if this returns true
var myDebugVar = myList.FirstOrDefault(s => s.ID == 5062);
?myDebugVar
useful tips here, I'll add my preference for when i next end up here asking this question again in the future.
if you don't mind adding an extension that doesn't require output files or such there's the Hex Visualizer extension for visual studio, by mladen mihajlovic, he's done versions since 2015.
provides a nice display of the array via the usual magnifine glass view object from the local variables window.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Mika76.HexVisualizer2019 is the 2019 version.
If you're in debug mode, you can copy any variable by writing copy() in the debug terminal.
This works with nested objects and also removes truncation and copies the complete value.
Tip: you can right click a variable, and click Copy as Expression and then paste that in the copy-function.
System.IO.File.WriteAllText("b.json", page.DebugInfo().ToJson())
Works great to avoid to deal with string debug format " for quote.
As #OmerRaviv says, you can go to Debug → Windows → Immediate where you can type:
myVariable
(as #bombek pointed out in the comments you don't need the question mark) although as some have found this limits to 100 lines.
I found a better way was to right click the variable → Add Watch, then press the + for anything I wanted to expand, then used #GeneWhitaker's solution, which is Ctrl+A, then copy Ctrl+C and paste into a text editor Ctrl+V.
I am currently maintaining some code, which is likely to be refactored soon. Before that happens, I want to make the standard error handling code, which is injected by an Add-In, more efficient and take up less space. One thing that annoys me is that every module has a constant called m_ksModuleName that is used to construct a big string, which is then rethrown from the error handler so we can trace the error stack. This is all template code, i.e., repetitive, but I could easily strip it down to a procedure call. Now, I have fixed the code so that you can pass the Me reference to the procedure - but you can't do that for the BAS modules. Nor can you access the project name (the part which would be passed as part of a ProgramID, for instance) - although you get given it when you raise an error yourself.
All these strings are contained in the EXE, DLL or OCX - believe me, I've used a debugger to find them. But how can I access these in code?
AFAIK there's no way to get the name of a BAS module in code. The usual solution is to use a module-level constant as in Mike's answer.
AFAIK the only way to get the ProgID (programmatic ID, Project Name in project properties dialog) is to raise an error in a BAS module, trap it, and read the Err.Source.
It's all quite a hassle, and that's why we don't usually bother including the module name or the ProgID in our standard error handlers. We "roll our own" call stack, with the names of the routines. That's always enough information to find out which modules are involved. Routines in BAS modules usually have unique names, right?
Something like this, and you can add this automatically with the free MZTools VB6 add-in.
Sub / Function whatever
On Error Goto Handler
do some stuff
Exit Sub / Function
Handler:
Err.Raise Err.Number, "(function_name)->" & Err.source, Err.Description
End Sub
Every top-level routine in a DLL or OCX has a similar error handler but also includes App.ExeName so we can tell when errors cross component boundaries.
I'm not sure of an easy way to programmatically get the name of the module that you are in. The usual solution is to set a variable at the top of each method to the name of the module, and then it is available to the error handler for use in logging:
'In MyModule.bas'
Public Sub Foo()
Const MODULE_NAME As String = "MyModule"
On Error GoTo ErrorHandler
' Code here '
Exit Sub
ErrorHandler:
LogError Err.Number, Err.Description, MODULE_NAME
End Sub
If you are using an add-in such as MZTools, you have it generate this boilerplate code for you.
As for getting the current component name, you can access this using App.EXEName (despite the name, this works for other project types such as DLL's). This value is pulled from the Project Name field in the project's properties (Project -> Properties) when running in the IDE, and from the name of the compiled binary file (minus the file extension) when running outside the IDE.
How to get all the functions you have in a code file in Visual Studio using VS macros?
I`m using Visual Studio 2008.
Also I need to get whether function is private protected or public. For now I know I can just parse the code and check it on my own, but I want to make it in a proper way and think vs macros environment should allow know all info about functions.
See HOWTO: Navigate the code elements of a file from a Visual Studio .NET macro or add-in
An maybe HOWTO: Navigate the files of a solution from a Visual Studio .NET macro or add-in would be interesting for you.
Getting function accessibility is easy. Following the first article, you have CodeElement object. If it is of type CodeFunction, you can cast it to CodeFunction (or also to CodeFunction2) type. The CodeFunction contains many properties including Access which is what you need. I have modified ShowCodeElement from this article so it only shows functions and also displays their accessibility:
Private Sub ShowCodeElement(ByVal objCodeElement As CodeElement)
Dim objCodeNamespace As EnvDTE.CodeNamespace
Dim objCodeType As EnvDTE.CodeType
Dim objCodeFunction As EnvDTE.CodeFunction
If TypeOf objCodeElement Is EnvDTE.CodeNamespace Then
objCodeNamespace = CType(objCodeElement, EnvDTE.CodeNamespace)
ShowCodeElements(objCodeNamespace.Members)
ElseIf TypeOf objCodeElement Is EnvDTE.CodeType Then
objCodeType = CType(objCodeElement, EnvDTE.CodeType)
ShowCodeElements(objCodeType.Members)
ElseIf TypeOf objCodeElement Is EnvDTE.CodeFunction Then
Try
Dim msg As String = objCodeElement.FullName & vbCrLf
Dim cd As EnvDTE.CodeFunction = DirectCast(objCodeElement, CodeFunction)
Select Case cd.Access
Case vsCMAccess.vsCMAccessDefault
msg &= "Not explicitly specified. It is Public in VB and private in C#."
Case Else
msg &= cd.Access.ToString
End Select
MsgBox(msg)
Catch ex As System.Exception
' Ignore
End Try
End If
End Sub
Change it and execute ShowFileCodeModel macro then.
Whenever we load a VB project it will call Initialize event of a User Control ( if there is any in the project). My problem is that is that I have some code in UserControl_Initialize that will try to create instances of other COM objects. On my build machine those controls are not registered. One option is to move the code to some other method other than Initialize but I want to know if there is a better solution? Somewhere I found that we may have a check to see if the calling application is VB editor then skip the initialization code...
You can use:
If Not Me.DesignMode Then
...
End If
An other solution we used was a little function which can be used globally:
Public Function IsRuntime() as Boolean
On Error Goto NotRuntime
Debug.Print(1 / 0)
IsRuntime = True
Exit Function
NotRuntime:
IsRuntime = False
End If
Don't know if it is syntactically well formed, but the idea should be clear:
Only in the IDE the debug statement is called.
This only happens if your project was saved with the form designer open: this means that at startup the form is displayed (maybe in the background) and consequently, all controls on it need to be initialized. Hence, your user control initializer is called if this control is used on the form.
To prevent this, simply save the project with the form designer closed.