I’ve used Visual Studio in its various incarnations since version 5.0, and
I’m still finding cool little things out about it. Today, while Googling
about for debugger-related things, I stumbled across a CodeProject
post which contains a real gem. It’s possible to create a watch on the
value of GetLastError() — the pseudovariable @ERR reflects the value
of the last error generated.
Additionally, the format specifier hr formats the number as an HRESULT style
identifier, so putting @ERR, hr in a watch pane shows values like S_OK. Previously I’ve
only known about the number formats (e.g. 12 to show 12 elements of an array) and x to show stuff in hex.
Dead handy stuff, and worth checking out the original article for even more pseudovariables.
Matt Godbolt is a C++ developer living in Chicago. He works for Hudson River Trading on super fun but secret things. He is one half of the Two's Complement podcast. Follow him on Mastodon or Bluesky.