PL/I Basic Demo Session › Control Program Execution › How to Stop Your Program by Setting Breakpoints

How to Stop Your Program by Setting Breakpoints

One of the problems with traditional testing methods is that you have little or no control over program processing. You initiate the task, and the program either runs to completion or abends.

With CA InterTest for CICS, you can control program execution in a number of ways. For example, you can set stops, called breakpoints, anywhere in your program. The types of breakpoints you can set for PL/I programs are unconditional, conditional, and request breakpoints.

• When you set an unconditional breakpoint at a statement, the program stops just before the statement is executed.
• When you set a conditional breakpoint at a statement, the program stops only if a condition you specified is met, such as a counter equaling or exceeding some value. You can also set a conditional breakpoint to stop at any nstruction when the condition you specified is met.
• When you set a request breakpoint, the program stops before all CICS commands, macros, and other program calls (such as calls to DL/I or DB2), or just before specific commands (such as all READ or WRITE commands).