02.01.08

robobait: debugging tools in Eclipse

Posted in programmer productivity at 11:31 am by ducky

Whoa dude!

I was looking for how to set a breakpoint on a field in Eclipse, i.e. any time that field gets set, break into the debugger. I stumbled into something else.

In the Variables pane of the debugger, if you right-click on a variable, one of the (many) options is All Instances; another is All References. They appear to show a list of all instances of a particular class and all the objects that refer to that instance. Oh wow! That would have been so useful!

And for my record, the way to set a breakpoint on a field modifications is to

  • find the field declaration,
  • set a breakpoint on that line,
  • go to the Breakpoints pane,
  • right-click on that breakpoint,
  • select Breakpoint Properties, and
  • uncheck the Field Access box

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