CODEWITHSUNDEEP
objective-ciosxcodetestinginstruments
Sakares
Sakares

Reputation: 606

Best practice testing the iOS application development with Instruments

I wonder how the professional application that provided to customer is such elegant , smooth and less or no application crash. because I always see the problem is mostly about memory leaking, NSZombie or not good enough performance.

I see it's great to fix some problem with Instruments Tool. But I just be familiar with memory leaks and zombie template. Of course, I think there are other interesting tool to trace and fix our application better. (System usage, Automation Testing, etc.. Any ideas?)

My question : What's the best strategy to sharp your application with Instruments? Recommend instruments template or any suggestion?

Let's share your experience and discuss!

*UPDATE : * May I ask more question, Should I edit this question to the wiki? It should be more than question that we can share strategy.

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1211

Answers (4)

justin
justin

Reputation: 104708

The CPU sampler (Time Profiler) will tell you where your program is spending its execution time. If your app is 'slow', this instrument can often help you determine where the problem time consumers are, and (if you understand your program) how you can remedy those problems.

Run this instrument regularly in order to understand your programs as well as the implementations behind the abstractions they depend on -- don't wait until a problem arises.

You can use the CPU sampler to record the callstacks of your programs' threads. This is recorded at a high frequency. The sampler displays information such as the functions that are taking the most time and what percentage of the time they are taking. You can charge libraries or functions to their callers, effectively choosing the granularity you'd like, or hiding what you cannot alter. Once you've found the functions/methods you are interested in, you can view the source file in Instruments, and it will break down what's taking so long for you.

Upvotes: 1

Rob
Rob

Reputation: 438232

Yes, Instruments is critical. ARC mitigates some of the worst memory problems. Analyze (on Product menu) is also under-appreciated, too.

Check out program 123, Improving the Stability of Your Apps, in WWDC 2011 in the App Frameworks section, which has a nice discussion of other issues that can affect the stability of your code (I especially think the discussion of testing is good).

Finally, elegance is not a product of a tool, but rather of good design. It takes a surprisingly amount of work to make a product that is elegant. Embrace the HIG and the broader philosophical themes contained therein. Also, do code and design reviews with developers that you respect.

Upvotes: 1

LJ Wilson
LJ Wilson

Reputation: 14427

I mainly (about 98.2% of the time) use the Leaks and Allocations templates. Also, many people don't know - but in Xcode 4, you can start the app using instruments right from Xcode. From the top menu, just choose Product -> Profile.

Also - even when using ARC, you should still be conscious of how you are using memory and how you are allocating objects. Many times, ARC was doing its thing just fine and yet a small programming change in my code resulted in much less allocated objects. ARC will help you when writing code, but it is not an excuse for not testing and profiling your applications to make them as efficient as possible.

Upvotes: 3

PavelAlieinikov
PavelAlieinikov

Reputation: 45

Apple introduced sweet feature called Automatic Reference Counting(ARC) that makes almost all memory control for you. You just need to set weak/strong parameter of properties. And it eliminates almost all problems with memory leaks. And as for tools - I don't know any other app other than Instruments. Instruments has all... Instruments:) I need, to do tests with.

Upvotes: 0

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