WOW

I understand that Perl's breakpoint mechanism works only on a line bases at the level of support from the runtime.

Nope. From perldebug

b Sets breakpoint on current line b [line] [condition] Set a breakpoint before the given line. If a condition is specified, it's evaluated each time the statement is reached: a breakpoint is taken only if the condition is true. Breakpoints may only be set on lines that begin an executable statement. Conditions don't use "if": b 237 $x > 30 b 237 ++$count237 < 11 b 33 /pattern/i b subname [condition] Set a breakpoint before the first line of the named subroutine. *subname* may be a variable containing a code reference (in this case *condition* is not supported). b postpone subname [condition] Set a breakpoint at first line of subroutine after it is compiled. b load filename Set a breakpoint before the first executed line of the *filename*, which should be a full pathname found amongst the %INC values. b compile subname Sets a breakpoint before the first statement executed afte +r the specified subroutine is compiled.
Subname can be Some::Package::Name::subname

In reply to Re: Identifying a location with finer granularity than a line number by Anonymous Monk
in thread Identifying a location with finer granularity than a line number by rockyb

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