IExpression (Eclipse Platform API Specification)

All Superinterfaces:

IAdaptable, IDebugElement

All Known Subinterfaces:

IErrorReportingExpression, IWatchExpression
```
public interface IExpression
extends IDebugElement
```
An expression is a snippet of code that can be evaluated to produce a value. When and how an expression is evaluated is implementation specific. The context/binding required to evaluate an expression varies by debug model, and by user intent. Furthermore, an expression may need to be evaluated at a specific location in a program (for example, at a breakpoint/line where certain variables referenced in the expression are visible/allocated). A user may want to evaluate an expression once to produce a value that can be inspected iteratively, or they may wish to evaluate an expression iteratively producing new values each time (i.e. as in a watch list).
Clients are intended to implement this interface.

Since:

2.0

Method Summary

All Methods Instance Methods Abstract Methods
Modifier and Type	Method	Description
`void`	`dispose()`	Notifies this expression that it has been removed from the expression manager.
`IDebugTarget`	`getDebugTarget()`	Returns the debug target this expression is associated with, or `null` if this expression is not associated with a debug target.
`String`	`getExpressionText()`	Returns this expression's snippet of code.
`IValue`	`getValue()`	Returns the current value of this expression or `null` if this expression does not currently have a value.

Methods inherited from interface org.eclipse.core.runtime.IAdaptable
getAdapter

Methods inherited from interface org.eclipse.debug.core.model.IDebugElement
getLaunch, getModelIdentifier

- Method Detail
  - getExpressionText
```
String getExpressionText()
```
    Returns this expression's snippet of code.
    
    Returns:
    
    the expression
  - getValue
```
IValue getValue()
```
    Returns the current value of this expression or null if this expression does not currently have a value.
    
    Returns:
    
    value or null
  - getDebugTarget
```
IDebugTarget getDebugTarget()
```
    Returns the debug target this expression is associated with, or null if this expression is not associated with a debug target.
    
    Specified by:
    
    getDebugTarget in interface IDebugElement
    
    Returns:
    
    debug target or null
    
    See Also:
    
    IDebugElement.getDebugTarget()
  - dispose
```
void dispose()
```
    Notifies this expression that it has been removed from the expression manager. Any required clean up is be performed such that this expression can be garbage collected.