Debugging & Best Practices - Learn SpriteBuilder for iOS Game Development - page 474

The fourth button (Step Over), fifth button (Step Into), and sixth button (Step Out) high-
lighted in Figure 14-8 are what I'm after.
Figure 14-8 . The Step Over, Step Into, and Step Out command icons
While the application execution is halted, you can use the Step Over command to advance
to the next line in the same function. This essentially executes the highlighted line of code
and halts again when it's done. The Step Into command works just like the Step Over
command, except if the execution pointer is on a line that calls a method (sends a mes-
sage), the Step Into command will continue execution inside that method. Sometimes, this
will merely bring you to an @property statement or to a method you don't really want
to look at, such as a singleton's sharedInstance class method. In that case, the Step
Out command runs the remainder of the current method until execution returns to the call-
ing method.
In the preceding example, clicking the Step Over command icon once leads to Figure
14-9 .
Figure 14-9 . After stepping over the line highlighted in Figure 14-6 , you can see that _playerNode became
nil
Obviously, in this example it's very clear that assigning nil to _playerNode will have
it take on that value. You can see this is reflected by the Variables View in Figure 14-9 .