After a long wait, I am almost completed with a new debugger/profiler for SSMS that will be available from ApexSQL very soon. The initial release will be useable from within SSMS and shortly thereafter within ApexSQL Edit. The debugger/profiler will feature the ability to debug stored procedures in SQL 2005 interactively, profile procedures, as well as something I'm calling "Lazy Debugging".
Here is a screenshot from within SSMS showing the summary tab after profiling a stored procedure. The summary tab shows the slowest statements across the procedure and any children that were executed as well as the min/max variable/parameter values and where they occurred.
The Profiler script view shows each of the database stored procedures and a visual indication of how long each statement took compared to the entire time for the object as well as how many times a particular statement was executed:
The Profiler Detail view shows every statement that was executed, how long it took for all executions of that statement, and the number of times a statement was executed.
The Last tab which is not pictured shows a list of every variable/parameter that had a value change and where that change occurred along with the previous value.
Another feature that the product will provide is the ability to do what we call "Lazy Debugging". With this, the product will execute the procedure and simply log everything that happens and then show a report that lists each step that was executed, how long each step took, what variables were changed as part of that statements, etc. Below is a screenshot that shows a procedure in the Lazy Debug report:
And the final piece of the product is a basic interactive debugger. However, unlike other boring debuggers, this one has some new features not found anywhere else. We show what values were changed on each line, allow the user to set variables while debugging as well as allowing the user to control which global variables are shown and the current call stack when debugging into multiple nested procedures. We also plan to offer conditional breakpoints while debugging so that you can set a condition and only break if that condition is met:
And the final feature we're excited about is one that I know many people have wanted for some time. Notice in the screenshot above, I have a temp table "#test" that I've inserted some data into. Wouldn't it be nice to know what is in that temp table WHILE I'm debugging? Well now you can, simply right click on the temp table in the editor and you can view the contents of the temp table WHILE debugging:
We hope to have a beta of the debugger/profiler available soon, so check back here and on the ApexSQL web site (www.apexsql.com) for more information.