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.Net Heap Dump Display Settings Dialog

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The Heap Dump Display Settings dialog allows you to manage how heap dumps are displayed, both visually and the content of the heap dump.

 

interactiveClick a part of the image below to jump straight to the help for that area.

 

 

 

heap-dump-display-settings-dialog

 

 

Data Display

 

Various attributes related to the each node can be displayed:

 

Object ID instructionStep Object ID.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-objectID

 

Age instructionStep How many garbage collections since this object was created.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-age

 

Generation instructionStep The generation this object was created in.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-generation

 

Class instructionStep The object class.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-class

 

Number of objects instructionStep The number of objects this object references.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-num-objects

 

Namespace instructionStep The object namespace.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-namespace

 

Filename instructionStep The source code filename and line number for the allocation location.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-filename

 

Path instructionStep The source code path for the allocation location.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-path

 

Thread ID instructionStep The thread id for the allocation location.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-threadID

 

Size of objects instructionStep The size in bytes of the number of objects referenced by this object.

 

 heap-dump-line-data-display-size-of-objects

 

 

Visual Highlighting

 

To aid identifying long lived objects that may be of interest when trying to find loitering objects that may be leaked you can highlight objects older than a specified age, and created after a specified generation. This allows you to ignore objects created during the startup phase of the application. A example of highlighting is shown below the highlighting controls.

 

Highlight long lived objects instructionStep Turn visual highlighting of loitering objects on / off.

 

Highlight objects older than instructionStep How old do you think an object needs to be for it get your attention?

 

Ignore first N generations instructionStep Enter the number of garbage collections it takes for your application to startup.

 

Highlighted objects look like this:

 

 heap-dump-example-highlighting

 

 

Data ordering

 

When choosing how to order the heap dump there are a few sorting options:

 

Num References, Type, Filename instructionStep Sort by Num References, then by Type, then by Filename.

 

Type, Filename, Num References instructionStep Sort by Type, then by Filename, then by Num References. This is the default option.

 

Filename, Type, Num References instructionStep Sort by Filename, then by Type, then by Num References.

 

 

Making the data easier to understand

 

Heap dumps can be very complicated to understand. The complexity is increased when there are objects present that don't really add to your understanding of the heap dump, but which are present all the same. We've provided some options to allow you to tailor the level of complexity to suit the task.

 

Full heap dump instructionStep Everything in the heap dump is shown.

 

 heap-dump-example-full

 

Simplified heap dump instructionStep Unimportant nodes in the heap dump are not shown. This is the default option.

 

What is classed as unimportant? Any node that references no other nodes and has no source code (CLR/.Net Frameworkd source code is not included) and any node that has reference nodes that are classed as unimportant.

 

 heap-dump-example-simplified

 

Over simplified heap dump instructionStep Unimportant nodes in the heap dump are not shown. Additionally some recursive nodes and some node links are not shown.

 

 heap-dump-example-over-simplified

 

The simplified heap dump is easier to display because less data is shown. It includes all recursive nodes and links to other nodes.

 

The over simplified heap dump has even less data and for many tasks may be easier to understand. But because the recursive nodes and links to other nodes are absent you may get an incorrect sense of the layout of the heap dump.

 

You need to use the over simplified heap dump with caution.

 

 

Auto display

 

Refresh the display when the dialog is closed instructionStep The display will be completely refreshed. Do not choose this option if you only wanted to change the visual highlighting or data display.