Expression Tree Visualizer Sample (Visual Basic)

  • Article

The Expression Tree Visualizer sample is a working implementation of a visualizer that can be run inside the Visual Studio debugger to view the contents of an expression tree.

To get samples and instructions for installing them

  • Do one or more of the following:

    • On the Help menu, click Samples.

      The Readme displays information about samples.

    • Visit the Visual Studio 2008 Samples Web site. The most recent versions of samples are available there.

    • Locate samples on the computer on which Visual Studio is installed. By default, samples and a Readme file are installed in drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Samples\lcid. For Express editions of Visual Studio, all samples are located online.

For more information, see Visual Studio Samples.

Note

The Expression Tree Visualizer can be used in a debug environment to visualize expressions. To use the visualizer, you must copy the DLL that is generated by the ExpressionTreeVisualizer project to \Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Visualizers. You may have to create the Visualizers folder. In Windows XP and earlier versions, use the My Documents directory instead of Documents. If you have appropriate permissions, you can also copy the file to the following folder: \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers.

Security noteSecurity Note:

This sample code is intended to illustrate a concept, and it shows only the code that is relevant to that concept. It may not meet the security requirements for a specific environment, and it should not be used exactly as shown. We recommend that you add security and error-handling code to make your projects more secure and robust. Microsoft provides this sample code "AS IS" with no warranties.

To run this sample

  • Press F5.

    To use the Visualizer, copy the DLL that is generated by the ExpressionTreeVisualizer project to the following location:

    • In Windows XP: My Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Visualizers

    • In Windows Vista: Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Visualizers

Demonstrates

The Expression Tree Visualizer can be used in a debug environment to visualize expressions.

This console program provides the ability to host the visualizer outside Visual Studio without having to copy the DLL.

The visualizer window sometimes becomes hidden if you run this program in console mode. If you encounter this problem, try using the GuiHost application instead of the ExpressionTreeVisualizer application.

For more information, see Expression Trees.

See Also

Concepts

Introduction to LINQ in Visual Basic

Other Resources

Getting Started with LINQ in Visual Basic

LINQ Samples