Uniquely Identifying Reference Types in the Debugger

Question

I come from a C++ background, so apologies if this is a non-C# way of thinking, but I just need to know. :)

In C++ if I have two pointers, and I want to know if they point to the same thing, I can look in the memory/watch window and see their value - to see if they are pointing to the same memory space.

In C#, I haven't been able to find something along those lines. One reference type with exactly the same values could in fact be the exact same object, or it could be something wildly different.

Is there a way for me to see this kind of information in C#? Perhaps some kind of equivalent to the & operator for the watch window or some such?

Answer 1

What you're looking for are object id's. For any referenc type in the debugger you can right click and say "Make Object ID". This will add a # suffix to the value column whenever that instance is displayed in the debugger. You can also add #1, #2, etc ... to the watch window to see them again any time later.

Step 0 - Run this code

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var x = "a string";
    var y = x;
    System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break();
}

Step 1 - Right Click and select "Make Object Id"

Step 2 - Instances now display with the 1# suffix. Note: I did nothing special in this step. Immediately after clicking "Make Object Id" both rows updated to display the 1# suffix since they refer to the same instance.

Step 3 - See them at any time by adding 1# to the watch window