When debugging a mobile application, how do you know when to use breakpoints?

2 Why use breakpoints?

Breakpoints are useful for several reasons. First, they help you locate and isolate errors in your code. By setting breakpoints at strategic points, you can narrow down the source of a bug and see how it affects your app's state. Second, they help you understand and optimize your code. By stepping through your code line by line, you can see how your logic works, how your functions interact, and how your app responds to different inputs and scenarios. Third, they help you test and debug your app on different devices and environments. By running your app in debug mode, you can simulate different conditions, such as network connectivity, battery level, orientation, or location, and see how your app behaves.

3 When to use breakpoints?

When to use breakpoints is not a straightforward answer, as it depends on your goals, preferences, and experience. Nevertheless, some general guidelines exist. Breakpoints should be used when you encounter an unexpected error or behavior in your app and want to find out what causes it and how to fix it. They can also be used to verify or validate your assumptions about your code, such as the values of variables, the output of functions, or the state of objects. Furthermore, breakpoints can be used to improve or optimize your code with respect to complexity, performance, or readability. Finally, you may use breakpoints when learning or exploring new features, frameworks, or libraries to see how they work and interact with your code.

4 Where to use breakpoints?

When deciding where to place breakpoints in your code, you should consider where you suspect or expect an error or a problem. Generally, it's a good idea to use breakpoints at the beginning or the end of a function, method, or block of code to observe how it is invoked and what it returns. Additionally, breakpoints should be used when your code interacts with external sources such as user input, network requests, database queries, or device sensors to understand how they affect your app's state and behavior. Breakpoints should also be placed at points where your code branches, loops, or recurses to track how your logic flows and how your conditions are evaluated. Lastly, you should use breakpoints when your code performs complex or critical operations such as calculations, transformations, or validations in order to see how they are executed and what results they produce.

5 How to use breakpoints?

Using breakpoints in your IDE and platform can be done in several ways. Setting one or more breakpoints can be done by clicking on the line number or the margin of your code editor, or by using a keyboard shortcut. To debug your app, you can select a debug configuration or attach a debugger to a running app. Once your app reaches a breakpoint, you can observe the state of your app in the debug window, such as the call stack, variables, watches, and console. You can also use debug commands to control the execution of your app, such as resume, pause, step over, step into, step out, or run to cursor. Debug actions like evaluate expression, modify variable, add watch, or set value can help inspect and manipulate the data and behavior of your app. Lastly, don't forget to remove or disable breakpoints when you are done debugging.

6 Best practices for using breakpoints

To make the most of breakpoints, you should use descriptive names and comments, and use them sparingly and strategically. Breakpoints should be used in combination with other debugging tools, such as logs, alerts, tests, or analytics. However, they should only be used for debugging, and not for modifying your app's functionality or behavior. Breakpoints can also be used for learning and experimenting, but they should not be relied upon as a substitute for writing clear code.