Microsoft 9GD00001 manual Customizing a Breakpoint, 157, Options from the Breakpoint Context Menu

Chapter 6: Debugging with Visual Studio 157

TIP

If you write a program that is doing a lot of work, or very little work but is stuck in an endless loop that you inadvertently created, you can pause execution by selecting the blue pair of vertical bars button found to the left of the square blue stop button. When you do this, your program stops at whatever line of code it was executing at the moment you selected the pause button. You can then resume from that point. This button works much like the pause button on a remote control or a personal media player.

Customizing a Breakpoint

The preceding explanation described how to set a location breakpoint, where execution stops on a designated line in code. However, you can make a program stop executing based on various criteria, such as hit count, conditions, and more. To see what else is available, set a location breakpoint and then right-click the dot in the margin to view the context menu. Table 6-1 describes each of the breakpoint options available from the breakpoint context menu.

You can also set a function breakpoint by clicking on the method to break on and selecting Debug New Breakpoint Break At Function or pressing CTRL-D, N.

Option

Meaning

Delete Breakpoint	Removes the breakpoint.
Disable/Enable	If you don’t want to delete the breakpoint because you’ll use it again, you can
Breakpoint	disable the breakpoint and then enable it later when you want to use it again.
Location	This is set when you click in the margin. You can change features of the location
	through a dialog window.
Condition	Allows you to enter an expression that can cause the program to stop if either the
	expression evaluates to true or the value of a variable has changed. The expression
	is based on variables in your code.
Hit Count	Makes the program break on that line every time, after a number of times the line
	has executed, when the count is a multiple of a number (i.e., every nth time), or
	when the number of hits is greater than or equal to a number.
Filter	The breakpoint will only be hit (causing execution to pause) for any combination of
	machine, process, or thread choice that you set.
When Hit	Sets a tracepoint that prints a message to the output window. The message is
	configurable to include output of various system values like function, thread, and
	more. You can view the message in the Output window by selecting View Output
	Window or pressing CTRL-ALT-O. You also have the option of running a macro when
	the breakpoint is hit.
Edit Labels	You can associate breakpoints with labels to help organize breakpoints into groups.
Export	Lets you export breakpoints into an external XML file.

Table 6-1 Options from the Breakpoint Context Menu