Often, I write my Azure Storage Table queries on LINQPad and copy over to Visual Studio. I find this workflow faster as I can quickly execute the queries and see the results using the Dump() extension method. (Many people have tried to port it to Visual Studio and if you are looking for something similar look here and here)

I generally use DynamicTableEntity on LINQPad as it saves some time. But since DynamicTableEntity contains all the properties as IDictionary<string,EntityProperty> calling Dump() on it won’t print an easy to read output.

But wait, I discussed about ToDynamicList method I wrote for Azure Table Browser on this post. So passing the DynamicTableEntity collection through this method before dumping will convert it to a flat list. Quick and easy..!

But calling ToDynamicList() every time before calling Dump() is tedious. can we just override the original Dump() method? Well, I did not find a strait-forward way to do it; though, I kind of got it working.

public static void Dump(this object obj)
{
	if (obj.GetType() == typeof(List<DynamicTableEntity>))
	{
		var data = obj as List<DynamicTableEntity>;

		if (data == null)
		{
			obj.Dump();
		}
		else
		{
			data.ToDynamicList().Dump("Storage Table Entities");
		}
	}
	else
	{
		obj.Dump(obj.GetType().Name);
	}
}

One limitation here, is I need to do a ToList() before calling Dump() since the type is not IEnumerable<DynamicTableEntity> at run-time, easy hack was to do a ToList().

Paste this custom Dump() extension method on LINQPad’s My Extensions file along with ToDynamicList extension method, and resolve the dependencies. You are all set to use it. Here is a simple driver program to show how to use it:

void Main()
{
	var account = "";
	var key = "";
	var tableName = "";

	var cloudTable = GetStorageAccount(account, key).CreateCloudTableClient().GetTableReference(tableName);
	var tableQuery = new TableQuery<DynamicTableEntity>().Where(filter: string.Empty);

	var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew();
	
	//do a ToList() on it
	var data = cloudTable.ExecuteQuery(tableQuery).ToList();
	data.Dump();
	
	timer.Stop();
	timer.Dump();
}

static CloudStorageAccount GetStorageAccount(string accountName, string key, bool useHttps = true)
{
	var storageCredentials = new StorageCredentials(accountName, key);
	var storageAccount = new CloudStorageAccount(storageCredentials, useHttps: useHttps);
	return storageAccount;
}

I have created a gist with complete code here. And if you find a better way to override Dump(), do let me know in the comments… :)