Object Dumper: An invaluable library when learning Linq or simply to figure out what an object is doing.

I came across this interesting library as part of the LINQ samples. Its called the Object Dumper. Basically it uses reflection on your object and dumps the results to the console for you.

The object dumper is a small utility library that comes with the LINQ CTP
samples. It basically iterates through the properties using reflection and dumps
the values to the console window. You can find the source at C:\Program
Files\LINQ Preview\Samples\ObjectDumper in the C# download.Jim
Wooley http://devauthority.com/blogs/jwooley/default.aspx

This is invaluable when you have a chunk of code you are developing and currently don't have a ui. You are simply developing the data layer and business rules layer. This object will spit out the results for you. Afterwards you could run a winmerge or other compare tool on the object at start and stop and see what changed. This is extremely valuable if your object trees are really large.

If you come across any tips, tricks, tools, code snippets that you find useful please email them to me at susan@clinchportal.com and I will post them for the group.