IL Visualiser

Originally developed by Haibo Luo in 2005 and posted in a series of blog posts (part one, part two).

Converted to a Git repository and upgraded to VS2015 by Drew Noakes. Conversion to VS2017 by @dadhi.

Usage

When paused in the debugger, select an instance of a subclass of MethodBase (such as DynamicMethod, MethodBuilder, ConstructorBuilder, ...) and launch a visualiser:

There are two ways to use this visualiser.

IL Visualizer (Modal)

Selecting "IL Visualizer" pops up a window showing the IL code.

This window is modal and debugging may only continue once the window is closed.

Out of Process (Non-modal)

Sometimes you don't want to close the window before continuing your debugging session. For such cases, you can run IL Monitor as a separate process, then select "Send to IL Monitor":

IL Monitor is a standalone MDI application that allows displaying mutliple IL views.

Installation

(Notes apply to VS 2015 and 2017, but are similar for earlier versions)

1. Download the latest release for your version of Visual Studio, or build from source

2. Copy ILDebugging.Decoder.dll and ILDebugging.Visualizer.dll to one of:

   • %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Visualizers
   • %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Visualizers
   • VisualStudioInstallPath_\Common7\Packages\Debugger\Visualizers

3. Restart the debugging session (you don't have to restart Visual Studio)

Note: If you get error "Operation not supported" when invoking the visualizer, restart Visual Studio and try again.

If you wish to use Send to IL Monitor, you run ILDebugging.Monitor.exe before attempting to use it from the debugger.

Earlier Visual Studio Versions

You can target earlier versions of Visual Studio by updating the assembly references for Microsoft.VisualStudio.DebuggerVisualizers.dll to the relevant version.

License

THE CODE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITH NO WARRANTIES INTENDED OR IMPLIED. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!