Visual Studio's Make Object ID

Ever wished you could watch the value of an out-of-scope variable while debugging in Visual Studio? You can, if you use the Make Object ID option in the watch/local window. Here's an example, with a variable p that goes out of scope when control jumps to a new method, or back to the calling method:

class Person
{
    public Person(string name)
    {
        Name = name;
    }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        DoIt();
    }

    private static void DoIt()
    {
        var p = new Person("Baldrick");
        DoIt2();
    }

    private static void DoIt2()
    {
        return;
    }
}

If you step through this code in Visual Studio and add a watch to variable p in method DoIt, the watch window will look like this:

When you step into method DoIt2, or out to Main, and refresh the watch on p, you get this message in the watch window:

If you want to be able to reliably watch the variable, the solution is to Make Object ID. Let's take the code back to DoIt and right-click on the watch on variable p:

Click on Make Object ID, and you'll see variable p is allocated object ID "1#"

If you add a watch to 1#, this allows you to view the value of p even when p goes out of scope:

The 1# reference can be used to update the value of the underlying variable p:

which will be reflected when (if) the object comes back into scope:

What about Garbage Collection?

The Object ID doesn't create a managed reference to the underlying object, which means that it will not interfere with its garbage collection: