Dynamics 365 Business Central: How to set a condition on a breakpoint in debugging (Conditional breakpoints)

Hi, Readers.
Today I would like to talk about how to set a condition on a breakpoint in debugging (Conditional breakpoints).

The basic concept in debugging is the breakpoint, which is a mark that you set on a statement. When the program flow reaches the breakpoint, the debugger stops execution until you instruct it to continue.

Without any breakpoints, the code runs without interruption when the debugger is active. You can set a breakpoint by using the Debug Menu in Visual Studio Code. For more information, see Debugging shortcuts. More details: Breakpoints

As part of debugging code, you can set breakpoints and for a certain breakpoint, you can define a condition.

When you’ve enabled debugging mode, and found a place in the code where you want to test a condition, you can right-click the margin of the code editor, and then choose Add Conditional Breakpoint. Or, you can right-click on an existing breakpoint and choose Edit Breakpoint.

In the inline dialog, choose Expression and then enter a condition that you want to test. If the condition evaluates as true, then code execution breaks at the breakpoint. If the condition is false, then code execution continues.

The condition can include any variables or fields that are currently in scope. You can compare a variable or a field to another variable or field, or you can compare a variable or field to a literal value. For example, set Rec.”No.” = ‘103218’

This way, the breakpoint will only be triggered when clicking on the posted sales invoice for number 103218.

Test video:

If you compare to a literal value, then the variable or field that you use in the breakpoint condition must be of one of the following data types:
Simple data types supported:

BigInteger
Boolean
Code
Decimal
Integer
Option
Enum
Text

Complex data types supported (version 26 and later):

Array
List
Dictionary
Record/RecordRef fields
Variant (when it wraps one of the above)

Operators supported:

Operator	Description	Remarks
`=`	Equal to	–
`<>`	Not equal to	–
`<`	Less than	–
`>`	Greater than	–
`<=`	Less than or equal to	–
`=>`	Greater than or equal to	–
`-`	Numeric negation	Supported from version 26 and later.
`NOT`	Logical negation	Supported from version 26 and later.
`AND` `OR`	Logical	Use parentheses to control precedence. Supported from version 26 and later.

Parenthesize complex expressions explicitly; AL operator precedence rules apply.

If you clear an existing condition, then that breakpoint is no longer a conditional breakpoint.

PS: Dynamics 365 Business Central: How to quickly clear/remove all breakpoints in VS Code

Below are some examples provided by Microsoft, which hopefully will give you some hints.

Break when a dictionary entry equals a value:

CustomerAges['ALFRED'] > 30

Break when the third element in an array is negative:

MyArray[3] < 0

Break on combined criteria (parenthesized):

(SalesHeader.Status = SalesHeader.Status::Open) AND (SalesHeader."No." = '103007')

Break when a Boolean flag is false:

NOT IsValidated

More details: Setting conditional breakpoints

Very simple, give it a try!!!😁

PS:
1. Dynamics 365 Business Central: Publish without debugging (Ctrl+F5) and Debug without publishing (Ctrl+Shift+F5)

2. Business Central 2023 wave 2 (BC23): Get IntelliSense for adding variables in Visual Studio Code AL debugger console

3. Business Central 2023 wave 2 (BC23): Open Visual Studio Code (Debugging) from web client to investigate or troubleshoot extensions

4. Business Central 2023 wave 1 (BC22): Attach AL debugger to active session or next session (Specific user)

5. Dynamics 365 Business Central: How to debug in phone/tablet client session

6. Business Central 2022 wave 2 (BC21): View SQL locks during AL debugging (Locks in Database Statistics)

7. Business Central 2022 wave 2 (BC21): Exclude Try functions when debugging errors (“breakOnError”: “ExcludeTry”)

8. Business Central 2022 wave 2 (BC21): Exclude temporary records when debugging record writes (“breakOnRecordWrite”:”ExcludeTemporary”)

9. Dynamics 365 Business Central: How to set your custom Method (procedure) and Variable non-debuggable (NonDebuggable Attribute)

10. Dynamics 365 Business Central: View the actual error message in the debugger

11. Dynamics 365 Business Central: Snapshot Debugging (Debugging in Cloud Production)

12. Dynamics 365 Business Central: Debugging Upgrade and Install code in Visual Studio Code

13. How to connect to Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premises in VS Code (Use the On-Premises version for customization)

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Hope this will help.

Thanks for reading.

ZHU