Move the Program Counter in Delphi Debugging

Question

In Visual Studio, when you're debugging with breakpoints you can change which line of code will be next to execute by dragging the execution cursor to another line; this lets you skip IF statements and the like.

I was idly wondering if there was a similar feature in Delphi anyone knew about?

I've been having a look around in the CPU window (Delphi 2006) but you only seem to be able to run through the instructions in order, not skip them.

Shakta

+1 for mentioning PC instead of IP :) – Aristotelianism

Haha, thanks. I was trying to remember the right term, it's been ages since I studied compsci xD – Shakta

Answer 1

In CPU View you can right-click and choose "New EIP (Ctrl + N)" to set the instruction pointer.

Calvados

Sweet, that's exactly what I wanted. Ta! :) – Shakta

Answer 2

In Delphi XE you can drag the execution cursor to another line as well. Not in the CPU window, but in the editor itself.

Deprecatory

Just tried and this works in Delphi 2010 as well. I did not know that, thanks. – Calvados

You can also right-click > Debug > Set Next Statement to do the same thing. That one has been around for ages too. – Characteristic

@DavidM That's also really useful, thanks! I didn't think of looking there; the editor right-click menu has so menu options that my eyes glaze over when I look at it. – Shakta

Answer 3

In the IDE of 2007 you can also set the execution pointer from the Debug-Contextmenu in the sourcecode. I've tried it a few times, but its very tricky. Don't try to move the pointer outside any begin-end block or it will bite you in the @ss later

Ium