Advantages of Function Breakpoints

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Setting a line breakpoint by toggling in the editor might be intuitive. However, many dbx users prefer function breakpoints for the following reasons:

Typing si dispatch in the Debugger Console window means you do not have to open a file in the editor and scroll to a line just to place a breakpoint.
Because you can create function breakpoints by selecting any text in the editor, you can set a breakpoint on a function from its call site instead of opening a file.
Tip - si is an alias for stop in. Most dbx users define many aliases and put them in the dbx configuration file ~/.dbxrc. Some common examples are:
```
alias si stop in
alias sa stop at
alias s step
alias n next
alias r run
```
For more information about customizing your .dbxrc file and dbxenv variables, see Setting dbxenv Variables in Oracle Solaris Studio 12.4: Debugging a Program With dbx .
The name of a function breakpoint is descriptive in the Breakpoints window. The name of a line breakpoint is not descriptive, although you can find what is at line 127 by right-clicking the line breakpoint in the Breakpoints window and choosing Go To Source, or by double-clicking the breakpoint.
Function breakpoints persist better. Because dbxtool persists breakpoints, line breakpoints might easily become skewed if you edit code or do a source code control merge. Function names are less sensitive to edits.