Watching variables in SSIS during debug

Question

I have a project in SSIS and I ve added an Execute SQL Task which sends its result out to a variable  I wanted to confirm the value because I was worried that it would try to write it out as a resultset object rather than an actual integer  in this case I m returning a COUNT    My first thought was just to run it in debug mode and add the global variable to my Watch window  Unfortunately  when I right-click on the Watch window  the option to  Add Variable  is greyed out  What am I missing here   I ve gotten around confirming that my variable is set correctly  so I m not interested in methods like putting a script in to do a MsgBox with the value or anything like that  For future reference I d like to be able to watch variables in debug mode  If there are some kind of constraints on that then I d like to know the what and why of it all if anyone knows   The help is woefully inadequate on this one and every  tutorial  that I can find just says   Add the variable to the Watch window and debug  as though there should never be a problem doing that   Thanks for any insight

User · Accepted Answer

I believe you can only add variables to the Watch window while the debugger is stopped on a breakpoint   If you set a breakpoint on a step  you should be able to enter variables into the Watch window when the breakpoint is hit   You can select the first empty row in the Watch window and enter the variable name  you may or may not get some Intellisense there  I can t remember how well that works

User · Answer

Drag the variable from Variables pane to Watch pane and voila

User · Answer

I know this is very old and possibly talking about an older version of Visual studio and so this might not have been an option before but anyway  my way would be when at a breakpoint use the locals window to see all current variable values    Debug    Windows    Locals

User · Answer

Visual Studio 2013  Yes to both adding to the watch windows during debugging and dragging variables or typing them in without  user     But before any of that would work I also needed to go to Tools   Options  then Debugging   General and had to scroll right down to the bottom of the right hand pane to be able to tick  Use Managed Compatibility Mode   Then I had to stop and restart debugging  Finally the above advice worked  Many thanks to the above and to this article   Visual Studio 2015 Debugging  Can  39 t expand local variables

[sql] Watching variables in SSIS during debug

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