How do I obtain a reference to the object or its data from my external viewer debugger visualizer?

Question

I am trying to write a debugger visualizer for a TJSONObject or a TJSONValue. I have most of the visualizer working nicely. The problem I am having is getting a reference to the TJSONObject, or at least to the tostring() value of the TJSONObject.

According to the samples I've seen, as well as the nice post by Jeremy North at http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/40268, I should get what I need from the Show method of my IOTADebuggerVisualizerExternalViewer implementation. Specifically, from the Expression, TypeName, and EvalResult string parameters.

From what I understand, Expression is the name of variable being inspected (visualized), TypeName is the classname of the variable, and EvalResult is the default string representation of the variable.

For a simple test I placed a TMemo on my TFrame descendant. From the IOTADebuggerVisualizerExternalViewer.Show method I call the ShowJSONObject method of my TFrame, to which I pass Expression, TypeName, and EvalResult. The relevant code appears here:

function TDebuggerJSONVisualizer.Show(const Expression, TypeName, EvalResult: string;
  SuggestedLeft, SuggestedTop: Integer): 
  IOTADebuggerVisualizerExternalViewerUpdater;
var
  AForm: TCustomForm;
  AFrame: TJSONViewerFrame;
  VisDockForm: INTACustomDockableForm;
begin
  VisDockForm := TJSONVisualizerForm.Create(Expression) as INTACustomDockableForm;
  AForm := (BorlandIDEServices as INTAServices).CreateDockableForm(VisDockForm);
  AForm.Left := SuggestedLeft;
  AForm.Top := SuggestedTop;
  (VisDockForm as IFrameFormHelper).SetForm(AForm);
  AFrame := (VisDockForm as IFrameFormHelper).GetFrame as TJSONViewerFrame;
  AFrame.ShowJSONObject(Expression, TypeName, EvalResult);
  Result := AFrame as IOTADebuggerVisualizerExternalViewerUpdater;
end;

{ TStringListViewerFrame }

procedure TJSONViewerFrame.ShowJSONObject(const Expression, TypeName,
  EvalResult: string);
begin
  Memo1.Lines.Add(Expression);
  Memo1.Lines.Add(TypeName);
  Memo1.Lines.Add(EvalResult);
end;

As you can see, I at this point I am only trying to display the values of these three parameters from my ShowJSONObject method.

Here is a simple TJSONObject that I tried to display using the visualizer:

var
 jo: TJSONObject;
begin
  jo := TJSONObject.Create;
  jo.AddPair('one', 'one');
  jo.AddPair('two', TJSONNumber.Create(1)); //a breakpoint here

The result looks like this:

I was hoping that EvalResult would return the tostring representation of the TJSONObject, but it only returned the uninformative (), which is the same thing you see by default in the local variables window.

How do I get either the tostring representation of the TJSONObject for which the visualizer was invoked or a handle to the actual object, so I can deconstruct and display its value?

Answer 1

You need to evaluate your expression (including ToString call) using this procedure (just copied from my own visualizer source so it could use some local variables that are not declared here):

function TJSONViewerFrame.Evaluate(Expression: string): string;
var
  CurProcess: IOTAProcess;
  CurThread: IOTAThread;
  ResultStr: array[0..4095] of Char;
  CanModify: Boolean;
  ResultAddr, ResultSize, ResultVal: LongWord;
  EvalRes: TOTAEvaluateResult;
  DebugSvcs: IOTADebuggerServices;
begin
  begin
    Result := '';
    if Supports(BorlandIDEServices, IOTADebuggerServices, DebugSvcs) then
      CurProcess := DebugSvcs.CurrentProcess;
    if CurProcess <> nil then
    begin
      CurThread := CurProcess.CurrentThread;
      if CurThread <> nil then
      begin
        EvalRes := CurThread.Evaluate(Expression, @ResultStr, Length(ResultStr),
          CanModify, eseAll, '', ResultAddr, ResultSize, ResultVal, '', 0);
        case EvalRes of
          erOK: Result := ResultStr;
          erDeferred:
            begin
              FCompleted := False;
              FDeferredResult := '';
              FDeferredError := False;
              FNotifierIndex := CurThread.AddNotifier(Self);
              while not FCompleted do
                DebugSvcs.ProcessDebugEvents;
              CurThread.RemoveNotifier(FNotifierIndex);
              FNotifierIndex := -1;
              if not FDeferredError then
              begin
                if FDeferredResult <> '' then
                  Result := FDeferredResult
                else
                  Result := ResultStr;
              end;
            end;
          erBusy:
            begin
              DebugSvcs.ProcessDebugEvents;
              Result := Evaluate(Expression);
            end;
        end;
      end;
    end;
  end;
end;

So now you can replace your Show function with something like this:

AFrame.ShowJSONObject(Expression, TypeName, Evaluate(Expression + '.ToString'));