The IDA Pro Book, 2nd Edition

Process Control

Perhaps the most important feature of any debugger is the ability to closely control—and modify, if desired—the behavior of the process being debugged. To that end, most debuggers offer commands that allow one or more instructions to be executed before returning control to the debugger. Such commands are often used in conjunction with breakpoints that allow the user to specify that execution should be interrupted when a designated instruction is reached or when a specific condition is met.

Basic execution of a process under debugger control is accomplished through the use of various Step, Continue, and Run commands. Because they are used so frequently, it is helpful to become familiar with the toolbar buttons and hotkey sequences ...