Object Dump Customization

This topic applies to:

Edition	Visual Basic	C#	C++	Web Developer
Express			Native only
Standard			Native only
Pro and Team			Native only

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When you derive a class from CObject, you can override the Dump member function to provide additional information when you use DumpAllObjectsSince to dump objects to the Output window.

The Dump function writes a textual representation of the object's member variables to a dump context (CDumpContext). The dump context is similar to an I/O stream. You can use the append operator (<<) to send data to a CDumpContext.

When you override the Dump function, you should first call the base class version of Dump to dump the contents of the base class object. Then output a textual description and value for each member variable of your derived class.

The declaration of the Dump function looks like this:

class CPerson : public CObject
{
public:
#ifdef _DEBUG
    virtual void Dump( CDumpContext& dc ) const;
#endif

    CString m_firstName;
    CString m_lastName;
    // And so on...
};

Because object dumping only makes sense when you are debugging your program, the declaration of the Dump function is bracketed with an #ifdef _DEBUG / #endif block.

In the following example, the Dump function first calls the Dump function for its base class. It then writes a short description of each member variable along with the member's value to the diagnostic stream.

#ifdef _DEBUG
void CPerson::Dump( CDumpContext& dc ) const
{
    // Call the base class function first.
    CObject::Dump( dc );

    // Now do the stuff for our specific class.
    dc << "last name: " << m_lastName << "\n"
        << "first name: " << m_firstName << "\n";
}
#endif

You must supply a CDumpContext argument to specify where the dump output will go. The Debug version of MFC supplies a predefined CDumpContext object named afxDump that sends output to the debugger.

CPerson* pMyPerson = new CPerson;
// Set some fields of the CPerson object.
//...
// Now dump the contents.
#ifdef _DEBUG
pMyPerson->Dump( afxDump );
#endif

See Also

Concepts

Object Dumps

Other Resources

The TRACE Macro