Then I realised I was approaching the problem from the wrong angle. Perhaps Visual Studio allows us to customise the debugging visualisations, and that means using STLPort with all the debugging benefits of the in-built system. This was where I discovered the autoexp.dat which is more or less undocumented by Microsoft. The system allows you to create custom visualisers for any datatype in the debugger. Unfortunately it requires arcane rituals to make it work and I believe the format may have changed for VS2005.
Anyway on to the meat of this post! I will post here the code you need to visualise map, vector, set, and list in Visual Studio 2005. First go and open C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Packages\Debugger\autoexp.dat in a text editor. Locate the line featuring the text PROPVARIANT. Just above that line add the following:
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; STLPORT visualisers
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; stlp_std::vector
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stlp_std::vector<*>{
children
(
#array
(
expr : ($c._M_start)[$i],
size : $c._M_finish-$c._M_start
)
)
preview
(
#(
"[",
$e._M_finish - $e._M_start ,
"](",
#array
(
expr : ($c._M_start)[$i],
size : $c._M_finish-$c._M_start
),
")"
)
)
}
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; stlp_std::list
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stlp_std::list<*,*>{
children
(
#list
(
head : $c._M_node._M_data._M_next,
skip : &($c._M_node._M_data),
next : _M_next
) : #( *($T1 *)(sizeof(stlp_std::priv::_List_node_base)+((char*)&($e))) )
)
preview
(
#(
"(",
#list
(
head : $c._M_node._M_data._M_next,
skip : &($c._M_node._M_data),
next : _M_next
) : *($T1 *)(sizeof(stlp_std::priv::_List_node_base)+((char*)&($e))),
")"
)
)
}
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; stlp_std::set
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stlp_std::set<*> {
children
(
#tree
(
head : $c._M_t._M_header._M_data._M_parent,
skip : $c._M_t._M_header._M_data,
left : _M_left,
right : _M_right,
size : $c._M_t._M_node_count
) : ((_Node*)(&$e))->_M_value_field
)
}
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
; stlp_std::map
;------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stlp_std::map<*,*,*,*> {
children
(
#(
[map]: [$c,!],
#tree
(
head : $c._M_t._M_header._M_data._M_parent,
left : _M_left,
right : _M_right,
skip : $c._M_t._M_header._M_data
) : *(stlp_std::pair<$T1,$T2>*)(((char*)(&((*((stlp_std::priv::_Rb_tree_node<$T1>*)(&$e)))._M_value_field))))
)
)
}
I am pretty sure I need to do some more tweaking to get it working even better. The map implementation is certainly the best part as it displays the list of items as pairs of (key, value) which is really useful. Some of the code for this was pilfered from the comments of this article - thanks to those people who blazed the initial trail.
