Change DateTime in debugger

Question

What the.... How do I change the value of a DateTime in the debugger? I can change it, but I get an error when leaving the edit field; it cannot parse it.

Edit: VS 2008, C#

Answer 1

Without looking at what you have, I'm not really sure what edit field you're referring to. However, you could try using the immediate window and DateTime.Parse or new DateTime() instead.

Answer 2

You can change the date in the Immediate Window.

date = new DateTime(2009, 10, 05)
{05/Oct/2009 12:00:00 AM}
    Date: {05/Oct/2009 12:00:00 AM}
    Day: 5
    DayOfWeek: Monday
    DayOfYear: 278
    Hour: 0
    Kind: Unspecified
    Millisecond: 0
    Minute: 0
    Month: 10
    Second: 0
    Ticks: 633902976000000000
    TimeOfDay: {00:00:00}
    Year: 2009

Answer 3

You can type things like this in to the Immediate window, the Watch window, or the QuickWatch window and they will get evaluated:

myDate = DateTime.Today.AddDays(2)
myDate = new DateTime(2009, 12, 25)

Answer 4

If you mean on Visual Studio debugger try like this:
- set the breakpoint
- open your DateTime variable in QuickWatch for example (right click)
- in Expression text box enter new value, this is example if your variable name is "dt":
dt = dt.AddDays(3)
- press enter and continue executing project

Answer 5

The "dt = " portion isn't strictly necessary. Just type in "dt.AddDays(3)" or "new DateTime(...)" or DateTime.Parse(""), etc, and the debugger will try to assign whatever value results from the expression you type to the variable under watch; it just so happens that because C# has assignment expressions (e.g. y = (x = 1); //sets y = 1) that assigning the expression to the variable name works. :)

Regards,

Anthony D. Green | Program Manager | Visual Basic Compiler

Answer 6

We do can change a DateTime value directly in the Watch Window. The trick is simple: we always have to use a "new DateTime()" method, providing the appropriate parameters.

The Watch Window do not allow you to to type a new value directly, so things like "2010-07-13 9:15" or even {13/07/2010 09:00:00} don't work.