Question

By default when viewing watches/variables of objects in Netbeans, it shows its address instead of its value. This is quite tiresome since I have to expand the variable to see its real value (e.g. for Double, Integer, Date, etc). As it turns out, Netbeans has “Variable formatters” but there is hardly any documentation that i can find for it.

How would I go about displaying e.g. a simple Date variable in a human readable format in the Watches/Variables window? I don’t fully understand the “Edit Variable Formatter” dialog.

I was able to properly do it for Double and Integer by using the following code snippet:
toString()

So the code seems to run in the context of the Double/Integer class. How would I refer to the actual variable if I need to do something more advanced such as:

return DateHelpers.formatDate(dateVariableName??, "yyyy-MM-dd");

Answer 1

In the variables view, you have a small $ icon (at the top left) which tooltip says :”Show variable value as toString() or formatted value”.

Just click that, it will show you the “value” of those variables.

EDIT: If you want to add a variable formatter, it’s very simple. On the variable formatter view, just click the “Add …” button then:

• In “Formatter Name” put the name of you formatter eg. “My Date formatter”
• “Class Types” put your complete class name eg. java.util.Date
• Select “Value formatted as a result of code snippet” and type the code to apply. For instance:

toString()

but if you want to manipulate the data or display some other thing you can. For instance:

toString() + " (" + getTime() + ")"

Which will display the time in human readable format plus the time as a long.

Don’t forget to select the $ icon on the view to apply your formatter.