Programming Tools Guide
Chapter 8, adb: absolute debugger
Stopping a program with interrupt and quit

Stopping a program with interrupt and quit

By pressing the INTERRUPT, <Ctrl>\, or Quit keys a program's execution can be stopped at any time. These keys stop the current program and return control to adb. The keys are especially useful for programs that have infinite loops or other program errors.

NOTE: By pressing the INTERRUPT <Ctrl>\, or Quit keys, to stop a program, adb automatically saves the signal and passes it to the program if the program is re-started by using the :co command. To continue a program's execution without sending the signals, specify: 
   :co  0
0 prevents a pending signal from being sent to the program.