But surely then, as in my example, only the code following the #define will benefit from the change in the value?

What I want to be able to do is change a "global variable" during the running of the program; a "global variable" that a number of conditions are based upon. I don't think that a #define rule is going to do the trick here.

I really appreciate your help, you have confirmed my suspicions, but I don't know where to go from here.

I really want to type private boolean debugModeOn; :s