How do I see the value of a GUID in the Visual Studio 2008 debugger?

Question

When you look at a GUID values item in the watch window you do not see the value of the item, when you expand the item you just see “Empty” this is very misleading!

You have to add “ToString()” to the value to see something useful.

So how do I get Visual Studio to add the “ToString()” it’s self?

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I am using VB.NET if it make a difference.

Answer 1

Take a look here: Visualizing GUIDs in the Visual Studio 2008 debugger

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Edit by Ian

Thanks that worked well, however I had to change

<Assembly: DebuggerDisplay("{ToString}", Target:=GetType(Guid))> 

to

<Assembly: DebuggerDisplay("{ToString()}", Target:=GetType(Guid))>

so it also worked from C#

Answer 2

When i add a guid to the watch window, it shows its value without having to expand it (the ToString() is automatically used).

How are you creating your guid? If you are using

Guid x = new Guid();

then yes, it will be an "empty" guid. If you use

Guid x = Guid.NewGuid();

then you will see that it has a value.