Have you ever wondered what is actually encoded in the __VIEWSTATE hidden variable on your Web Forms? It's actually a base64 serialized encoding of a datatype called a Triplet, that has other objects nested within it. I threw together a small class that has a single static method that will write the viewstate to a file. It indents to see the hierarchy. It also deserializes the viewstate into a Triplet object that you can view in the debugger. This code is only for debugging, and should not be left in the shipping application.

[Visual Basic]

Call the method in the Page_Load event of your Web Form, like this:

DebugViewState.SeeViewState(Request.Form("__VIEWSTATE"), "c:\temp\viewstate.txt")

and include this class in the project:

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic.Strings
Imports System
Imports System.Diagnostics
Imports System.Web.UI

Public Class DebugViewState
    'Written by Greg Reddick. http://www.xoc.net
    Public Shared Sub SeeViewState(ByVal strViewState As String, ByVal strFilename As String)
        If Not strViewState Is Nothing Then
            Debug.Listeners.Clear()
            System.IO.File.Delete(strFilename)
            Debug.Listeners.Add(New TextWriterTraceListener(strFilename))
            Dim strViewStateDecoded As String = _
                (New System.Text.UTF8Encoding()).GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(strViewState))
            Dim astrDecoded As String() = strViewStateDecoded.Replace("<", "<" _
                & vbCr).Replace(">", vbCr & ">").Replace(";", ";" _
                & vbCr).Split(Convert.ToChar(vbCr))
            Dim str As String
            Debug.IndentSize = 4
            For Each str In astrDecoded
                If str.Length > 0 Then
                    If Right(str, 2) = "\<" Then
                        Debug.Write(str)
                    ElseIf Right(str, 1) = "\" Then
                        Debug.Write(str)
                    ElseIf Right(str, 1) = "<" Then
                        Debug.WriteLine(str)
                        Debug.Indent()
                    ElseIf str = ">;" Or str = ">" Then
                        Debug.Unindent()
                        Debug.WriteLine(str)
                    ElseIf Right(str, 2) = "\;" Then
                        Debug.Write(str)
                    Else
                        Debug.WriteLine(str)
                    End If
                End If
            Next
            Debug.Close()
            Debug.Listeners.Clear()

            'Get into the debugger after executing this line to see how .NET looks at
            'the ViewState info. Compare it to the text file produced above.
            Dim trp As Triplet = CType((New LosFormatter()).Deserialize(strViewState), Triplet)
        End If
    End Sub
End Class

[C#]

Call the method in the Page_Load event of your Web Form, like this:

DebugViewState.SeeViewState(Request.Form["__VIEWSTATE"], @"c:\temp\viewstate.txt");

and include this class in the project:

using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Web.UI;

public class DebugViewState
{
    // Written by Greg Reddick. http://www.xoc.net
    public static void SeeViewState(string strViewState, string strFilename)
    {
        if (strViewState != null)
        {
            Debug.Listeners.Clear();
            System.IO.File.Delete(strFilename);
            Debug.Listeners.Add(new TextWriterTraceListener(strFilename));
            string strViewStateDecoded = 
                (new System.Text.UTF8Encoding()).
                GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(strViewState));
            string[] astrDecoded = strViewStateDecoded.Replace("<", "<\n").
                Replace(">", "\n>").Replace(";", ";\n").Split('\n');
            Debug.IndentSize = 4;
            foreach (string str in astrDecoded)
                if (str.Length > 0)
                    if (str.EndsWith(@"\<"))
                        Debug.Write(str);
                    else if (str.EndsWith(@"\"))
                        Debug.Write(str);
                    else if (str.EndsWith("<"))
                    {
                        Debug.WriteLine(str);
                        Debug.Indent();
                    }
                    else if (str.StartsWith(">;") || str.StartsWith(">"))
                    {
                        Debug.Unindent();
                        Debug.WriteLine(str);
                    }
                    else if (str.EndsWith(@"\;"))
                        Debug.Write(str);
                    else
                        Debug.WriteLine(str);
            Debug.Close();
            Debug.Listeners.Clear();

            //Get into the debugger after executing this line to see how .NET looks at
            //the ViewState info. Compare it to the text file produced above.
            Triplet trp = (Triplet) ((new LosFormatter()).Deserialize(strViewState));
        }
    }
}

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