In one embodiment the present invention includes a computer-implemented method for dynamically displaying, during runtime, the composition of a data structure in a tabular format. During execution of an application, a command indicating the name of a data structure as an argument is executed, thereby causing a dynamic data structure display generator to request the type of the particular data structure whose name is included in the command as an argument. Upon receiving the type and the location of the data structure, the dynamic data structure display generator selects a process to analyze the data structure. Using the selected process, the data structure is analyzed and its elements are systematically communicated to a user interface service, which is responsible for displaying, in a tabular format, the elements (names and values) of the data structure.