Inspecting memory in the Memory view

With the Memory view, you can look at the contents of memory at a specific address. The address can be obtained from an expression that references a variable or a register. When you monitor memory, you can set the monitor to be rendered in a data format such as Hex, ASCII, EBCDIC, UTF-8, signed integer, and unsigned integer.

About this task

The Memory view is described according to this diagram:

  • The Monitors pane is located on the left-hand side of the view (pointer A. in the diagram). This portion of the view contains a list of expressions, variables, and registers that you have added for monitoring. In this documentation, a monitor is a memory monitor that is listed in the Monitors pane.
  • The Renderings pane is located on the right-hand side of the view (if the view is set to horizontal orientation) and it contains renderings for the selected monitor (pointer B. in the diagram). You use it to set the data format (or formats) that you want displayed for monitored memory.
  • The Toggle Split Pane control (pointer C. in the diagram) allows you to split the Renderings pane. By default, the Memory view only displays one rendering pane. When you click Toggle Split Pane, a second rendering opens and displays as a split pane.
  • The Link Memory Rendering Panes control (pointer D. in the diagram) allows you to keep split Renderings panes synchronized when you navigate in a rendering or change the format of a rendering.
When you monitor an address or expression from the Monitors pane, the Renderings pane becomes populated with the default text-based rendering for your operating system. When you monitor an address or expression from the Renderings pane, the pane becomes populated with a list of renderings from which you can choose one to display.
Note: If you want to display memory in UTF-8 format, use Traditional or Hex and Character renderings. To display characters in the UTF-8 encoding, right-click the rendering and select Text > UTF-8 from the menu.

You can monitor multiple variables, expressions, and registers in the Memory view - or you can add multiple renderings to the Renderings pane. In the Monitors pane, each variable, expression, or register that you have added is listed. In the Renderings pane, only one or more memory renderings for the currently-selected monitor in the Memory view is displayed (multiple renderings are separated by tabs or a split pane).

You can set the two panes in the Memory view to display in a horizontal orientation (side-by-side) or in a vertical orientation (top-to-bottom). To set the layout of the view, click the Memory view down-arrow icon and select Layout from the menu. This will open a submenu, from which you can choose the orientation that you want to display.