The Debugging Tool

Visual Basic's development environment includes a debugging tool that becomes part of the development environment when you request debugging help. The debug tool lets you do all the following tasks:

• Analyze variable contents at runtime.
• Stop the program at any statement and restart when ready.
• Set breakpoints throughout the code that automatically stop the program execution when a breakpoint is reached.
• Change variables during the execution of a program to different values from their current state to test the application.
• Set watch variables that halt the program's execution when the watch variables receive a specific value or range of values.
• Skip statements you don't want to execute during a test.
• Use the Debug object's output window to print values during a program's execution. The debug window lets you capture output, such as variable values, without disturbing the normal form window.

You can enter the debugging mode and have access to all the debugger's features (primarily found on the Debug menu) when you do any of the following:

• Press Ctrl+Break to stop the program's execution in midstream.
• Receive a runtime error message dialog box.
• Set a breakpoint, and execution reaches that breakpoint.
• Click a statement in the program and then, from the Debug menu, choose Run To Cursor to execute the program as usual. Visual Basic halts the program and enters debugging mode as soon as execution reaches the cursor.