Custom Visualizer for DbCommand

Question

Hi im trying to create a custom Visualizer for the DbCommand object that should be used in Visual studio 2013.

i have the following code

using VisualizerTest;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers;
using System;
using System.Data.Common;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
using System.Windows.Forms;

[assembly: DebuggerVisualizer(typeof(TestVisualizer), typeof(CommandObjectSource), Target = typeof(DbCommand), Description = "Test")]

namespace VisualizerTest
{
    public class TestVisualizer : DialogDebuggerVisualizer
    {
        protected override void Show(IDialogVisualizerService windowService, IVisualizerObjectProvider objectProvider)
        {
            DbCommand command;
            try
            {
                using (Stream stream = objectProvider.GetData())
                {
                    BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
                    command = (DbCommand)formatter.Deserialize(stream);
                }
                MessageBox.Show(command.CommandText);
            }
            catch(Exception ex)
            {
                MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
            }
        }
    }
}


namespace VisualizerTest
{
    [Serializable]
    public class CommandObjectSource : VisualizerObjectSource
    {
        public override void GetData(object target, Stream outgoingData)
        {
            if (target != null && target is DbCommand)
            {
                DbCommand command = (DbCommand)target;

                BinaryFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();

                formatter.Serialize(outgoingData, command);
            }
        }
    }
}

But the CommandObjectSource is never invoked and instead i get a exception

Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers.DebugViewerShim.RemoteObjectSourceException: Type 'System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand' in Assembly 'System.Data, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' is not marked as serializable.

My understanding was that by using a custom VisualizerObjectSource i would get around the Serialization issue?

As a side note i have tried to change Target = typeof(DbCommand) to Target = typeof(SqlCommand) and it made no difference.

Test code:

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {

        using (SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("SELECT Field1 FROM table WHERE Field2 = @Value1"))
        {
            command.Parameters.AddWithValue("@Value1", 1338);
            TestValue(command);
        }

        Console.ReadKey();
    }

    static void TestValue(object value)
    {
        VisualizerDevelopmentHost visualizerHost = new VisualizerDevelopmentHost(value, typeof(TestVisualizer));
        visualizerHost.ShowVisualizer();
    }
}

Answer 1

Because you are explicitly creating the VisualizerDevelopmentHost it won't use the DebuggerVisualizerAttribute so you have to pass in your CommandObjectSource as the third parameter:

VisualizerDevelopmentHost visualizerHost = 
    new VisualizerDevelopmentHost(value, typeof(TestVisualizer),                  
                                         typeof(CommandObjectSource));

With this change your CommandObjectSource will be called but you still have the serialization problem because the BinaryFormatter also needs the class to be marked as Seralizabe...

So you should probably only include the CommandText (or create a new DTO object and seralize that if you need multiple properties) with:

[Serializable]
public class CommandObjectSource : VisualizerObjectSource
{
    public override void GetData(object target, Stream outgoingData)
    {
        if (target != null && target is DbCommand)
        {
            DbCommand command = (DbCommand)target;

            var writer = new StreamWriter(outgoingData);
            writer.WriteLine(command.CommandText);
            writer.Flush();
        }
    }
}

And read it with:

public class TestVisualizer : DialogDebuggerVisualizer
{
    protected override void Show(IDialogVisualizerService windowService, IVisualizerObjectProvider objectProvider)
    {
        string command;
        try
        {
            command = new StreamReader(objectProvider.GetData()).ReadLine();
            MessageBox.Show(command);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString());
        }
    }
}