DebuggerDisplayAttribute implementation doesn't have means to check for the current display settings (such as hexadecimal base)

[vsfeedback]

This issue has been moved from a ticket on Developer Community.

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I'm using a bit pattern (a Uinteger) as a key in a Dictionary. I've switched the display to hex, but the values are still displayed in decimal. This is similar to an already reported problem, which has been solved in VS 15.8, but it's happening in VS 15.9.6.

The attached shows a dictionary whose count in in hex but the keys are in decimal.

This happens both when using the "locals" tab and when hovering over a value.

Whether the item number shold be in hex or decimal is an interesting question.

(private comment, text removed)

[tmat]

KeyValuePair<K,V> could use DebuggerDisplayAttribute("[{Key}, {Value}]"), which would result in formatting the Key as a hexadecimal number. This is however not a recommended pattern due to performance. The recommended pattern is to define GetDebuggerDisplay method and use DebuggerDisplayAttribute("{GetDebuggerDisplay(),nq}"). However, GetDebuggerDisplay is not aware of "hex" mode.

Perhaps we could allow GetDebuggerDisplay to take an enum DebuggerDisplayOptions as an argument that would reflect the current debugger settings.