Stepping Through Your Program

Once a breakpoint has been reached, you can step into the code of your application in different ways :

• Next Step (shortcut : F7) :   The debugger will execute the next instruction (i.e. line of code) and pause

• Step Into (shortcut : Shift+F7) :  The debugger will execute the next instruction (i.e. line of code) and pause. If that instruction is a function call it will jump into the function and future steps will go line by line through that function until it returns to the line that called it.
• -exec-finish:   The debugger will resume execution until the current function is exited.
• Debug / Continue (shortcut : F8) :  The debugger will start or continue the execution of your program until another breakpoint is reached.

If your program is still paused at the breakpoint, try hitting F7 to continue to the next step. You'll note that the cursor in the source code moves down to the next line of code and highlights it in blue. The breakpoint returns to its red highlight.



If you keep hitting F7, the debugger will continue executing the program one line at a time until it reaches the end. Note that this is very useful in sections of your code where you think there may be logic errors or infinite loops. You can essentially slow the program execution down and view each instruction as it happens.