breakpoint

Pluralbreakpoints

Formsbreakpoints, breakpointing, breakpointed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A point in a program where execution can be paused during debugging so that the program's state can be examined.

   The developer placed a breakpoint inside the loop to examine the array contents.

   Hitting the breakpoint paused execution just before the crash.

   Note

   A debugger's stopping place, built plainly from break and point: the program breaks off at a chosen point. Programmers set one, hit it and clear it. While execution is suspended, they can inspect variables, the call stack and memory. The noun also produced its verb, so a line of code can be breakpointed as well as given a breakpoint.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A viewport width at which a web page adjusts the position, size, or visibility of certain elements.

   The team added a breakpoint at 768 pixels to switch the grid to a single column on tablets.

   Designers test the page at every breakpoint to make sure nothing overlaps.

   Note

   Responsive design's threshold: a width, often given in pixels, at which CSS media queries restyle the page. Charles Wyke-Smith's Stylin' with CSS (2012) describes it as a test: a screen at or below the defined width gets the related CSS. He also notes the urge to match breakpoints to particular devices. Unlike the debugging sense, nothing halts; the layout simply reflows.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   The point where surface water waves break, as in an ocean or a lake.

   Experienced surfers line up just inside the breakpoint to catch the wave's energy.

   Storm swells pushed the breakpoint much closer to the beach.

   Note

   Here the break belongs to the wave itself. As waves shoal toward shore, they grow unstable and break. Where that happens depends largely on wave height measured against water depth. The spot therefore moves: bigger swells break in deeper water, farther from the beach. That is why surfers place themselves relative to it, lining up just inside rather than at a fixed mark.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A location used as a reference point when issuing watches, warnings, or advisories for specific areas.

   The National Hurricane Center extended the warning from one breakpoint to another along the Gulf coast.

   Officials chose the inlet as a breakpoint so residents knew exactly which areas the watch covered.

   Note

   Forecasters' geography rather than a coder's tool. In the text of marine and tropical-cyclone watches and warnings, named coastal places mark where the affected stretch begins and ends. A warning therefore runs from one breakpoint to another, and residents read those names to learn whether they are inside it. Nothing pauses here: the word marks where coverage starts and stops.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To flag a location in a program with a breakpoint so that execution halts there.

   Developers often breakpoint the suspicious method before running the test suite.

   He breakpointed every database call to trace the slowdown.

   Note

   A verb made straight from the noun. It is transitive and regular: breakpoints, breakpointing, breakpointed. Its past participle does much of the work as an adjective. Ben E. Cline's Microprogramming Concepts and Techniques (1981) speaks of a breakpointed location and a breakpointed microinstruction. The object is the spot in the code being marked, such as a method, a line or a call.

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