Patent ID: 7434205

Claim:
A method of displaying information using a development tool in a software development environment, the method comprising the acts of: determining a virtual type for each of a plurality of variables in a development project, each of the plurality of variables also having a native type, and where for each of the plurality of variables, the virtual type is interpreted differently than the native type; storing associations between the plurality of variables and their determined virtual types; providing a graphical user interface for displaying one or more of the variables in the development project, wherein the graphical user interface displays the interpreted value of information stored at a memory location associated with each of the one or more variables as determined by the virtual type associated with each of the one or more variables; detecting that the user has interacted with the graphical user interface to change the virtual type associated with a displayed variable to a new virtual type; in response to detecting that the user has interacted with the graphical user interface to change the virtual type associated with the displayed variable to the new virtual type, storing an association between the displayed variable and the new virtual type; and updating the graphical user interface to reflect the new interpretation of the information stored at the memory location associated with the displayed variable; and enabling the user to interact with the graphical user interface to change the information stored at the memory location associated with the displayed variable, where the information stored at the memory location associated with the displayed variable is changed by the user specifying a new value for the displayed variable as interpreted by its virtual type, thereby causing the information stored at the memory location associated with the displayed variable to be updated so that the displayed variable is interpreted according to its virtual type, the displayed information is consistent with the new value specified by the user.