PSSCor2: Object Inspection Commands, Part 2

In the previous installment, we’ve seen how PSSCor2 makes it easy to display the contents of a DateTime, of an IPAddress, of an XmlDocument, and of certain collection classes. Now we’ll take a look at some additional commands that inspect heap objects.

The !DumpField commands automates the process of displaying a particular object field (by field name). This is especially useful when combined with some looping constructs like .foreach to execute a script in the debugger session. In the following example, I have an Employee class that has an _id field, and I want to display all the IDs of all the employees currently present on the managed heap:

0:000> .foreach (emp {!dumpheap -type SimpleManagedApp.Employee -short}) {!DumpField -field _id emp}
2775
1771
2309
1170
2636
1819

Next, there are two specialized commands for analyzing DataTables: !DumpDataTables and !DumpColumnNames. The first is extremely useful when you want to see if there are any large DataTables consuming a significant amount of memory; the latter is useful for inspecting these specific tables and detecting what they are. For example:

0:003> !dumpdatatables
Loading the heap objects into our cache.
DataTable       Rows    Columns    DataSet     nextRowID ColumnCount
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0x25fd6a0 0x25fda78 0x25fd928 0x25e145c             3         0
Total 1 DataTable objects

0:003> !dumpdatatables -size
*** Runs !ObjSize on each DataTable so this may take a while!
Loading the heap objects into our cache.
sizeof(025fd6a0) =        7,040 (      0x1b80) bytes (System.Data.DataTable)
DataTable     TotalSize       Rows    Columns    DataSet     nextRowID ColumnCount
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0x25fd6a0         7,040 0x25fda78 0x25fd928 0x25e145c             3         0
Total 1 DataTable objects

0:003> !dumpcolumnnames 0x25fd6a0
Column Names for DataTable: 0x25fd6a0
author, book_Text

(This DataTable was created by loading a simple XML document into a DataSet.)

Similarly, there are numerous commands for inspecting the state of an ASP.NET application. Here’s some example output—I’m sure you’ll figure out these commands from context, and using the !help command:

0:018> !aspxpages
Going to dump the HttpContexts found in the heap.
Loading the heap objects into our cache.
HttpContext    Timeout  Completed     Running  ThreadId ReturnCode   Verb RequestPath+QueryString
0x04f7715c    19200 Sec       yes                   XXX        200   GET /Default.aspx
0x050fc398      110 Sec       yes                   XXX        404   GET /favicon.ico
0x0514aaac    19200 Sec        no        85 Sec       6        200   POST /Default.aspx
Total 3 HttpContext objects

0:018> !DumpASPNETCache -s
Going to dump the ASP.NET Cache.
Loading the heap objects into our cache.
   Address            MT        Priority            Create Time                Expires           Last Updated    Key    Class Name
051502a4    001a9148          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:39    12/31/9999 23:59:59    0                MyKey    System.String
050fda8c    0a951300          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:39    12/31/9999 23:59:59    0                dmachine/webroot/1/favicon.ico    System.Web.CachedPathData
050e1a94    0f8caeec          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:38    08/23/2010 12:07:39    08/23/2010 12:06:39    e1Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Triden    System.Web.Mobile.MobileCapabilities
050e1a94    0f8caeec          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:38    12/31/9999 23:59:59    0                z-90014800    System.Web.Mobile.MobileCapabilities
050b3d4c    0f8c6bd0          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:38    12/31/9999 23:59:59    08/23/2010 12:06:39    cdefault.aspx.cdcab7d2    System.Web.Compilation.BuildResultCompiledTemplateType
050af710    0044c774          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:38    12/31/9999 23:59:59    08/23/2010 12:06:38    yapp_web_mrdimh5w    System.Reflection.Assembly
04f95fb0    0ec031d4          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:37    12/31/9999 23:59:59    08/23/2010 12:06:39    hc:\users\sasha\documents\visual studio 2010\Projects\SimpleManagedApp\MyWebApp\Default.aspx    System.Web.Security.FileSecurityDescriptorWrapper
04f8fde0    0a951300          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:37    12/31/9999 23:59:59    08/23/2010 12:06:39    dmachine/webroot/1/default.aspx    System.Web.CachedPathData
04f50e84    0a951300          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:36    12/31/9999 23:59:59    08/23/2010 12:06:39    dmachine/webroot/1    System.Web.CachedPathData
04f46184    0a951300          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:36    12/31/9999 23:59:59    08/23/2010 12:06:39    dmachine/webroot    System.Web.CachedPathData
04f38a10    0a951300          Normal    08/23/2010 12:06:36    12/31/9999 23:59:59    08/23/2010 12:06:39    dmachine    System.Web.CachedPathData
Total 11 cache objects, Total size: 792

0:018> !DumpHttpRuntime -r
Going to dump the HttpRuntimes found in the heap.
Loading the heap objects into our cache.
HttpRuntime 0x04f2c9d8:
_shutdownInProgress: 0
_requestQueue:

RequestQueue 0x04f777c4:
_minExternFreeThreads: 704
_minLocalFreeThreads: 608
_appDomainAppPath: c:\users\sasha\documents\visual studio 2010\Projects\SimpleManagedApp\MyWebApp\
_appDomainAppId: f46e0782
_fcm:

Name: System.Web.FileChangesMonitor
MethodTable: 0a6dd350
EEClass: 0a76d8b0
Size: 60(0x3c) bytes
GC Generation: 1
Fields: […removed for brevity…]

_cacheInternal:

Name: System.Web.FileChangesMonitor
MethodTable: 0a6dd350
EEClass: 0a76d8b0
Size: 60(0x3c) bytes
GC Generation: 1
Fields: […removed for brevity…]

_isOnUNCShare: 0
_debuggingEnabled: 1
-----------------

Total 1 HttpRuntime objects

Additional commands in this category that you might find useful are !DumpRequestQueues, !DumpRequestTable, !DumpHistoryTable, !DumpBuckets, and !GetWorkItems. Some of them require rather delicate understanding of IIS internals.

Next time: Miscellaneous GC-heap-related commands.