<programming> A point in a program that, when reached, triggers some special behavior useful to the process of debugging generally, breakpoints are used to either pause programexecution, and/or dump the values of some or all of the programvariables. Breakpoints may be part of the program itself or they may be set by the programmer as part of an interactive session with a debugging tool for scrutinizing the program' s execution. (1999-06-07)