.NET collection gadget

Inspect the members and types of a supported .NET collection exposed by an Inspector API object.

Inspect collection members

Use .NET collection gadget to read the members of a collection exposed by another Inspector view. The gadget is a read-only inspection surface: it displays the current collection and does not alter the source collection contents.

The .NET collection gadget showing the Inspectable Collection title, a 138 x IFeature summary, IFeature member type, indexed feature rows, and magnifiers for inspecting individual values.

Summary identifies the number of members and the displayed member type
Member Type shows the collection's primary value type
Indexed rows show each displayed member and a magnifier when the value can be inspected further

Before you start

Select an object that exposes a collection-valued API field, such as Features or Nodes
Open .NET API object gadget and choose an interface that exposes the collection

Steps

In .NET API object gadget, find a collection-valued row such as Features or Nodes.
Select the row's magnifier to open that value in a new .NET collection gadget.
Confirm Summary and Member Type before interpreting the rows.
Read the indexed member rows. Use the magnifier beside a row when the member is an inspectable object or another collection.
Scroll the gadget when the collection has more members than the visible panel.

Interpret the result

An ordinary enumerable uses zero-based labels such as [0], [1], and [2].
A dictionary uses its keys as labels, such as [SomeKey], and reports the dictionary value type as Member Type.
A value such as Root : IFeature combines the displayed object identity with its type. Open its magnifier when the identity alone does not answer the investigation question.
Summary uses the collection count and member type, for example 138 x IFeature. Use it to check that the value opened from the API row is the collection you intended to inspect.
<null> means that a displayed value returned no value. It is not a command to create or replace a member.
A collection must be an IEnumerable; strings are excluded from this gadget. If the selected value is not a supported collection, choose another API row or return to .NET API object gadget.

Read-only boundary

The gadget creates display rows from the current collection values. It provides no collection editor, add/remove command, or setter for those values. Opening a member for deeper inspection, copying displayed text, or selecting a related layout object are observation and navigation actions; they do not change the source collection.