While working with JavaScript, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to stop the execution of your script. Whether you’re debugging or just want to halt a script, you can easily do this in Google Chrome. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through the process of stopping JavaScript execution in Chrome using its Developer Tools.
Step 1: Open Chrome Developer Tools
First, you need to open the Developer Tools in your Chrome browser. You can do this in one of three ways:
- Right-click on any part of the page, and select “Inspect” from the context menu.
- Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + I (Windows/Linux) or Cmd + Option + I (Mac).
- Click on the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of Chrome, go to “More tools” and select “Developer tools.”
Step 2: Open the Sources tab
In the Developer Tools panel, click on the “Sources” tab. This is where you can view and edit the JavaScript code currently running on the page.
Step 3: Pause the script execution
To stop JavaScript execution in Chrome, you can use the “Pause script execution” button. This button looks like a blue octagon with a white pause symbol (two vertical lines) inside. You can find it in the top-left corner of the Sources tab.
Clicking this button while a script is running will pause the script execution. Once you’ve paused the script, you can step through it line by line by clicking the “Step over” button, which looks like a blue square with a white arrow pointing to the right.
Keep in mind that the “Pause script execution” button only works if there’s currently active JavaScript running on the page. If the script has already finished executing, you won’t be able to pause it.
Step 4: Set breakpoints (optional)
If you want to pause the JavaScript execution at a specific point in your code, you can set breakpoints. To do this, find the line of code you want to pause at in the Sources tab, and click on the line number. This will set a breakpoint, which is indicated by a blue arrow icon next to the line number.
When the script reaches the breakpoint, execution will pause, allowing you to inspect the current state of the script and step through it line by line.
Step 5: Resume script execution
To resume the script execution, click the “Resume script execution” button, which looks like a blue octagon with a white triangle pointing to the right. This will allow the script to continue running from the point where it was paused.
Conclusion
Stopping JavaScript execution in Chrome is a useful skill for debugging and understanding how your code is running. By using the Developer Tools’ Sources tab and the “Pause script execution” button, you can easily halt and resume JavaScript execution as needed.