Breakpoint

Breakpoint

A breakpoint in the Eclipse IDE

A breakpoint is a marker set by a programmer in the source code of a computer program to temporarily halt execution at a specific point. Breakpoints are essential tools in debugging and are used to inspect the state of a program at a particular moment in time.

Purpose

Breakpoints allow developers to pause the execution of a program to examine the current state of the variables, the call stack, and the memory usage. This helps in identifying logical errors, understanding program flow, and verifying that the program behaves as expected.

Types of Breakpoints

There are several types of breakpoints that can be used in debugging:

• Line Breakpoints: These are set on a specific line of code and pause execution when that line is reached.
• Conditional Breakpoints: These breakpoints pause execution only if a specified condition is true.
• Function Breakpoints: These are set on a function and pause execution when the function is entered.
• Exception Breakpoints: These break execution when a specified exception is thrown.
• Watchpoints: These break when the value of a specified variable changes.

Setting Breakpoints

In most integrated development environments (IDEs), setting a breakpoint is as simple as clicking in the margin next to the line of code where you want the program to pause. In the Eclipse IDE, for example, a breakpoint can be set by double-clicking in the left margin next to the line number.

Using Breakpoints in Debugging

When a program is run in debug mode, the execution will pause at each breakpoint, allowing the developer to inspect the current state of the program. The developer can then step through the code line by line, continue execution to the next breakpoint, or stop debugging altogether.

Related Pages

• Debugging
• Integrated development environment
• Software testing
• Eclipse (software)