COBOL Advanced Monitoring Features › Set and Remove Conditional Breakpoints

Set and Remove Conditional Breakpoints

Conditional breakpoints are breakpoints that take effect when a specific condition is met, such as when a counter exceeds a value. These breakpoints can help you isolate complex problems.

The previous chapter showed how easy it is to set an unconditional breakpoint directly on your source listing. All you do is type a u to the left of the statement where you want to set the breakpoint.

To set a conditional breakpoint, type a c to the left of the statement where you want to set the breakpoint, as shown next, and press Enter.

   CA InterTest for CICS V9.1   - PROTSYM FILE  SOURCE LISTING DISPLAY         
COMMAND ===>                                                                   
Program= COBDEMO  Option #       Stmt #                             Margin= 01 
                                        Search=                                
OPTS 1 Proc div  2 Work-stor 3 Link sect  4 D-map      5 Clst/Pmap More:   +   
     6 Data xref 7 Proc xref 8 Err msgs   9 Srch fwd  10 Srch bwd              
PFKS 1 Help      2           3 End        4 Profile    5 Monitor    6 Menu     
     7 Backward  8 Forward   9           10           11           12 Status   
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 _ 000435      Go to  GEN-ERR depending on dfheigdi.                            
   000436                                                                       
 _ 000437 NO-OPTS.                                                              
 c 000438     MOVE SPACE TO TASK-SWITCH.                                        
 _ 000439     MOVE ZERO  TO TASK-SWITCH2.                                      
 _ 000440     MOVE SPACE TO TASK-SWITCH3. 

CA InterTest displays the menu on which you define the condition. For the following example, the breakpoint halts program execution only if TASK‑SWITCH is equal to 3.

         CA-InterTest MONITORING COMMAND BUILDER - CONDITIONAL BREAKPOINT      
                                                                               
 Enter LEFT SIDE                                                               
     Data Name task-switch_____________________________________________________
                                                                               
                                                                               
 Enter OPERATOR (EQ, NE, GT, LT, GE, LE):  eq                                  
                                                                               
 Enter RIGHT SIDE                                                              
     Data Name ________________________________________________________________
        OR                                                                     
     Literal 3_________________________________________________________________
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
 _ ENTER  S  to Drop monitoring on a true condition                            
                                                                               
 For location:                                                                 
            000498     MOVE SPACE TO TASK-SWITCH.                              
                                                                               
 Press PF9 to go to complex conditional screen if necessary                    
 PF1 Help       2            3 End        4 Return     5            6          
 PF7            8            9 Complex   10           11           12         

Conditional breakpoints are indicated by a C next to the line of code in your source listing.