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You can change the display format of variables in the QuickWatch dialog box or in the Watch window using the formatting symbols in the following table.
| Symbol | Format | Value | Displays |
| d,i | signed decimal integer | 0xF000F065 | -268373915 |
| u | unsigned decimal integer | 0x0065 | 101 |
| o | unsigned octal integer | 0xF065 | 0170145 |
| x,X | Hexadecimal integer | 61541 (decimal) | 0x0000F065 |
| l,h | long or short prefix for: d, i, u, o, x, X | 00406042,hx | 0x0c22 |
| f | signed floating-point | 3./2. | 1.500000 |
| e | signed scientific notation | 3./2. | 1.500000e+000 |
| g | signed floating-point or signed scientific notation, whichever is shorter | 3./2. | 1.5 |
| c | Single character | 0x0065 | 'e' |
| s | String | 0x0012fde8 | “Hello world” |
| su | Unicode string | “Hello world” | |
| st | Unicode string or ANSI string, depending on Unicode Strings setting in autoexp.dat. | ||
| hr | HRESULT or Win32 error code. | 0x00000000L | S_OK |
| wc | Window class flag. | 0x00000040 | WC_DEFAULTCHAR |
| wm | Windows message numbers | 0x0010 | WM_CLOSE |
To use a formatting symbol, type the variable name, followed by a comma and the appropriate symbol. For example, if var has a value of 0x0065, and you want to see the value in character form, type var,c in the Name column on the tab of the Watch window. When you press ENTER, the character-format value appears:
var,c = 'e'
You can use the formatting symbols shown in the following table to format the contents of memory locations.
| Symbol | Format | Displays |
| ma | 64 ASCII characters | 0x0012ffac .4...0...".0W&.......1W&.0.:W..1...."..1.JO&.1.2.."..1...0y....1 |
| m | 16 bytes in hexadecimal, followed by 16 ASCII characters | 0x0012ffac B3 34 CB 00 84 30 94 80 FF 22 8A 30 57 26 00 00 .4...0...".0W&.. |
| mb | 16 bytes in hexadecimal, followed by 16 ASCII characters | 0x0012ffac B3 34 CB 00 84 30 94 80 FF 22 8A 30 57 26 00 00 .4...0...".0W&.. |
| mw | 8 words | 0x0012ffac 34B3 00CB 3084 8094 22FF 308A 2657 0000 |
| md | 4 doublewords | 0x0012ffac 00CB34B3 80943084 308A22FF 00002657 |
| mq | 4 quadwords | 0x0012ffac 7ffdf00000000000 5f441a790012fdd4 |
| mu | 2-byte characters (Unicode) | 0x0012fc60 8478 77f4 ffff ffff 0000 0000 0000 0000 |
With the memory location formatting symbols, you can type any value or expression that evaluates to a location.
To display the value of a character array as a string, precede the array name with an ampersand (&):
&yourname
A formatting character can follow an expression also:
rep+1,x
alps[0],mb
xloc,g
count,d
To watch the value at an address or the value pointed to by a register, use the BY, WO, or DW operator.
Follow the operator with a variable, register, or constant. If the BY, WO, or DW operator is followed by a variable, then the environment watches the byte, word, or doubleword at the address contained in the variable.
You can also use the context operator { } to display the contents of any location.
To display a Unicode string in the Watch window or the QuickWatch dialog box, use the su format specifier. To display data bytes with Unicode characters in the Watch window or the QuickWatch dialog box, use the mu format specifier.
Note You can apply formatting symbols to structures, arrays, pointers, and objects as unexpanded variables only. If you expand the variable, the specified formatting affects all members. You cannot apply formatting symbols to individual members.