Patent ID: 7526756

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a request for an address watch breakpoint to a variable used by a program; determining that the variable is referenced via a basing pointer expression, wherein the basing pointer expression specifies a basing pointer that is not set to a valid address; in response to the determining that the variable is referenced via the basing pointer expression, saving the basing pointer expression; in response to the determining that the variable is referenced via the basing pointer expression, monitoring for an initialization of the basing pointer, wherein the monitoring for the initialization further comprises directing a processor that executes the program to raise an interrupt when the contents at an address of the basing pointer are modified and stop execution of the program at an instruction in the program that modifies the contents at the address of the basing pointer; and after the basing pointer has been initialized, monitoring for a change to the variable via the basing pointer expression that was saved.