# Ruby-debug vs. breakpoint **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [August 20, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-debug-vs-breakpoint/112562 "2007-08-20T23:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 11:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-debug-vs-breakpoint/112562/1 "2007-08-20T23:27:32Z")
Okay, so it looks like getting the ole “breakpoint” working isn’t going to happen. Everyone seems to just push for making the switch over to “ruby-debug”. I’ve decided to go with the flow, but have to say that I feel like I’m giving up a lot. The nice thing about a breakpoint was it dropped you into the IRB where you could interact with your code by entering in code that is immediately executed bringing back the results. With ruby-debug, this doesn’t seem possible. Why aren’t more people upset about the switch? Am I missing something? Thanks, Tom ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 2:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-debug-vs-breakpoint/112562/2 "2007-08-21T14:14:15Z")
TomRossi7 wrote: > Okay, so it looks like getting the ole “breakpoint” working isn’t > going to happen. Everyone seems to just push for making the switch > over to “ruby-debug”. I’ve decided to go with the flow, but have to > say that I feel like I’m giving up a lot. The nice thing about a > breakpoint was it dropped you into the IRB where you could interact > with your code by entering in code that is immediately executed > bringing back the results. With ruby-debug, this doesn’t seem > possible. Why aren’t more people upset about the switch? Am I > missing something? Just require ‘ruby-debug’ and you have the same functionality as you had with breakpoint library. You might use either ‘debugger’ call or old ‘breakpoint’ call (aliased since ruby-debug 0.9.3) in your code. If you do not want to write ‘eval ’ (or just ‘e ’) you might you ‘set autoeval’. Then just write in your code and it is evaluated automatically. breakpointer was deprecated also in Rails: [http://debug-commons.rubyforge.org/misc/ruby-debugging.html#breakpointer](http://debug-commons.rubyforge.org/misc/ruby-debugging.html#breakpointer) Regards, m. ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-debug-vs-breakpoint/112562/3 "2007-08-21T17:17:57Z")
On Aug 20, 2007, at 4:25 PM, TomRossi7 wrote: > Okay, so it looks like getting the ole “breakpoint” working isn’t > going to happen. Everyone seems to just push for making the switch > over to “ruby-debug”. I’ve decided to go with the flow, but have to > say that I feel like I’m giving up a lot. The nice thing about a > breakpoint was it dropped you into the IRB where you could interact > with your code by entering in code that is immediately executed > bringing back the results. With ruby-debug, this doesn’t seem > possible. Why aren’t more people upset about the switch? Am I > missing something? You can type irb at a ruby-debug prompt to drop into a breakpoint style session. James Edward G. II ---
**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2007, 5:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-debug-vs-breakpoint/112562/4 "2007-08-21T17:26:00Z")
On Aug 21, 8:11 am, Martin K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > breakpointer was deprecated also in Rails: > > [http://debug-commons.rubyforge.org/misc/ruby-debugging.html#breakpointer](http://debug-commons.rubyforge.org/misc/ruby-debugging.html#breakpointer) > > Regards, > m. One thing that I’ve found is that you can’t use rdebug in a test/unit test. If the breakpoint is in a class that is invoked within an assertion, it’s caught. I toyed with implementing a tool to allow me to break within a unit test, but wasn’t sure it would be worth the work.