How to enhance debugging in Visual Studio with just one simple step

During the debugging session, I always had problems with complex structures. Preview most interesting properties were irritating, we need to expand a variable. In most cases, I tried to override ToString method. But it isn’t always possible. Default tooltip is useless. Just look on it:

Adding an attribute

Probably You won’t believe me, but a few years ago, in .NET 2.0 times, Microsoft introduced DebuggerDisplayAttribute, which is very useful. Just add it like below:

[DebuggerDisplay("Range=<{RangeStart}; {RangeEnd})")]
class Range
{
    public int Start;
    public int End;
    //Other stuff
}

Now, tooltip looks great. Moreover, your class doesn’t change at all. Just check it out:

More awesome stuff

Another great attribute is DebuggerBrowsableAttribute and DebuggerTypeProxyAttribute. Just take a look on MSDN to find out more.