Teach Yourself Borland C++ in 14 Days - portal

394 Day 11
The IDE debugger provides several features and tools to help you in your debugging chores.
Specifically, the following features are discussed here:
■ Debugger menu items
■ Using breakpoints
■ Inspecting variables with the Watch List
■ Inspecting objects with the Debug Inspector
■ Other debugging tools
■ Stepping through code
■ Debugging techniques
Why Use the Debugger?
The quick answer is that the debugger helps you track down bugs in your program. But the
debugging process is not just for finding and fixing bugs—it is a development tool as well.
As important as debugging is, many programmers don’t take the time to learn how to use all
the features of the IDE debugger. As a result, they cost themselves time and money, not to
mention the frustration of a bug that can’t easily be tracked down.
You begin a debugging session by starting up the program under the debugger. You
automatically run your program using the debugger when you click the Run button on the
speedbar. You can also choose Run | Run from the main menu or press F9 on the keyboard.
The Debugging Menu Items
Before we get into the details of the debugger, let’s go over the menu items that pertain to
the debugger. Some of these menu items are on the main menu under Run, and others are
on the Code Editor speed menu. Most of these items are discussed in detail as you work
through the chapter, so I’ll just touch on them here so that you are at least familiar with them.
Table 11.1 lists the Code Editor speed menu items that are specific to the debugger and their
descriptions.
Table 11.1. The Code Editor speed menu’s debugging items.
Item Shortcut Description
Toggle Breakpoint F5 Toggles a breakpoint on or off for the current
line in the Code Editor.
Run to Cursor none Starts the program (if necessary) and runs it
until the line in the editor window containing
the cursor is reached.