Dictionary of Debugging: Breakpoint
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009Breakpoint
A code or a processor state modification to plan for a synchronous diversion to another execution path when some condition is met. Usually implemented by a special processor instruction inserted at the specified address or a special processor register that holds the specified condition to be met. If that condition is met or the special instruction is executed the processor interrupts a computational process (a debuggee) and transfers the execution to another computational process (a debugger) that can inspect the debuggee state.
No breakpoints (normal execution path, the yellow line represents a function call):
2 breakpoints (BP#1 is inside the function and BP#2 is at the entry of another function):
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
Also: virtual memory, software breakpoint, hardware breakpoint, processor breakpoint, data breakpoint, code breakpoint, exception, debugger event.
- Dmitry Vostokov @ DumpAnalysis.org -