Debugging Breakpoint Options

The previous section showed how to set breakpoints to stop the code at predetermined lines of code. TOAD also allows "conditional" breakpoints.

Figure 4.55 illustrates how to set a breakpoint so that execution stops after 10 times though the loop. Press F11 to execute the procedure. Notice in Figure 4.56 that a watch was placed on the loop_counter variable and that the loop_counter is at 9. This is because the loop is on its tenth iteration and the variable loop_counter (where the breakpoint is set) has not been incremented yet.

Figure 4.55. Setting a conditional breakpoint.

Figure 4.56. Conditional breakpoint in action.

Figure 4.57 illustrates how to set a conditional breakpoint on a particular condition such as 'ENAME = SMITH'. When running the procedure, position the mouse over the 'rec. name ' on line 11 and you will see that the code did stop executing when the ENAME of SMITH was located. If you check the loop_counter variable, you will notice that it is at 0, so SMITH just happens to be the first row returned.

Figure 4.57. Conditional breakpoint in action (2).