Format Specifiers in C#

This topic applies to:

Edition	Visual Basic	C#	C++	Web Developer
Express
Standard
Pro and Team

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When you debug C# code in the Watch window or QuickWatch dialog box, you change the format in which a value is displayed using format specifiers.

To use a format specifier, type the expression followed by a comma. After the comma, add the appropriate specifier.

Example

Suppose nVar is a character variable, and the Watch window shows the value as 0x0000F065. You want to see this value as decimal, but you do not want to reset the display of all variables to decimal. You can use the format specifier d to show the variable contents in decimal:

nVar,d

The following table shows the C# format specifiers recognized by the debugger.

Specifier	Format	Value	Displays
ac	Force evaluation of an expression. This can be useful when implicit evaluation of properties and implicit function calls is turned off. See Side Effects and Expressions.
d	Decimal integer	0x0065	101
h	Hexadecimal integer	61541	0x0000F065
nq	String with No Quotes	"My String"	My String
hidden	Displays all public and non-public members
raw	Displays item as it appears in the raw item node. Valid on proxy objects only.
results	Used with a variable of a type that implements IEnumerable or IEnumerable<T>, usually the result of a query expression. Displays only the members that contain the query result.

See Also

Tasks

How to: Watch an Expression in the Debugger

Other Resources

Variable Windows