Anuj Gakhar

I have started using Flash Builder 4 recently and the one feature I am loving the most is the Conditional Debugging. Using conditional breakpoints in Flash Builder 4, you can configure a breakpoint to trigger only after a certain number of loop iterations. For instance, you can halt the application on the third time a breakpoint is reached. You can also use a conditional breakpoint to suspend the application when a particular expression either changes or evaluates to true. In the next walkthrough you will make the breakpoint that was set up in the first walkthrough conditional by adding an expression.

Consider the following piece of code :-

[as3]
private function init():void
{
for (var i:int = 0;i < 15; i++)
{
var obj:Object = {label:’Label’ + i, data:i, selected:false};
ds.addItem( obj );
}
}
[/as3]

This code is simply creating 15 Objects and putting them all in an ArrayCollection for later use. If I want the debugger to break only when the loop is on its 10th run, then we can setup a conditional breakpoint that would look like this :-

You can open this Breakpoint Properties screen by right clicking on the actual BreakPoint and clicking on ‘BreakPoint Properties’. Notice I have Enabled a Condition (i == 10) which would make the debugger stop only when i is 10.

There is another option called “Hit Count” as you can see in the screenshot above. I can achieve the above scenario by using the Hit count feature as well, in which case, the Breakpoint Properties will look like this :-

In this case, the debugger only breaks when this particular breakpoint has been hit 10 times. As you can see, these are really useful features for a developer. I cant even begin to think of developing Flex apps without using the debugger. And these new features simply make this a lot more easier and useful.