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The two most common types of bugs are syntactical and runtime errors.

Errors in syntax include such oversights as misplaced braces or endif statements, and are generally caught by the compiler before you even get to the debug stage. If you run uncompiled code through the Debugger, however, it will easily catch any syntactical errors.

Runtime errors, such as calls to non-existent tables, are also quickly exposed by the Debugger, which automatically halts at the offending reference.

When you are stopped by any error, you can either cancel or suspend further execution of the program, ignore the error and continue running the code through the Debugger, or note the problem, open your dBASE Plus Source editor, fix the code, and then return to the Debugger to check for additional errors.

The third, and least obvious type of bug is an error in program logic, and these are not detected so easily. If, for example, your program includes a method that is supposed to execute after a certain event, but the event is bypassed, you may need to use all the debugging power described in this chapter to track down and correct the problem.