Question

I’m curious if there’s a keyword in Java which would allow eclipse or an IDE to stop running through code and start the debugger when the code reaches a particular point.

I understand that breakpoints are very useful for this particular problem, however I wish to only begin to debug the program if a particular condition is reached, and this condition is one which is not checked by the program regularly, so I’d have to program it in purely for debugging.

For example,

if(condition_is_met){
    //throw debugger and begin to step through here
}

The only other way I can think of doing it is…

if(condition_is_met){
    System.out.println("Something"); //Then set a breakpoint here in Eclipse.
}

Which just seems messy, and means I would be liable to miss it when cleaning up the code later. Does Java have a keyword for this, perhaps similar to Javascript’s debugger keyword?

Answer 1

There is no keyword for it but you can specify conditional debugging in Eclipse.

Check below

1. FAQ How do I set a conditional breakpoint?
2. Effective Debugging: Conditional Breakpoints