1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
|
page.title=Debugging
@jd:body
<div id="qv-wrapper">
<div id="qv">
<h2>In this document</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="#stack">Debugging Environment</a></li>
<li><a href="#addltools">Additional Debugging Tools</a></li>
<li><a href="#tips">Debugging Tips</a></li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<p>The Android SDK provides most of the tools that you need to debug your applications. You need
a JDWP-compliant debugger if you want to be able to do things such as step through code,
view variable values, and pause execution of an application. If you are using Eclipse, a
JDWP-compliant debugger is already included and there is no setup required. If you are using
another IDE, you can use the debugger that comes with it and attach the debugger to a special
port so it can communicate with the application VMs on your devices. The main components that
comprise a typical Android debugging environment are:</p>
<dl>
<dt><a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/tools/adb.html"><strong>adb</strong></a></dt>
<dd><code>adb</code> acts as a middleman between a device and your development system. It provides various
device management capabilities, including moving and syncing files to the emulator, running a
UNIX shell on the device or emulator, and providing a general means to communicate with
connected emulators and devices.</dd>
<dt><a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/tools/ddms.html"><strong>Dalvik Debug Monitor
Server</strong></a></dt>
<dd>DDMS is a graphical program that communicates with your devices through <code>adb</code>. DDMS can
capture screenshots, gather thread and stack information, spoof incoming calls and SMS
messages, and has many other features.</dd>
<dt><a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/devices/avds-devices.html"><strong>Device or
Emulator</strong></a></dt>
<dd>Your application must run in a device or emulator so that it can be debugged. An <code>adb</code> device
daemon runs on the device or emulator and provides a means for the <code>adb</code> host daemon to
communicate with the device.</dd>
<dt><strong>JDWP debugger</strong></dt>
<dd>The Dalvik VM (Virtual Machine) supports the JDWP protocol to allow debuggers to attach to
a VM. Each application runs in a VM and exposes a unique port that you can attach a debugger to
via DDMS. If you want to debug multiple applications, attaching to each port might become
tedious, so DDMS provides a port forwarding feature that can forward a specific VM's debugging
port to port 8700. You can switch freely from application to application by highlighting it in the
Devices tab of DDMS. DDMS forwards the appropriate port to port 8700. Most modern Java IDEs include a JDWP debugger,
or you can use a command line debugger such as <a href="http://download.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/">
<code>jdb</code></a>.</dd>
</dl>
<h2>Debugging Environment</h2>
<p>Figure 1 shows how the various debugging tools work together in a typical
debugging environment.</p>
<img src="/images/debugging.png"
alt="Debugging workflow" />
<p class="img-caption><strong>Figure 1. </strong> Debugging Workflow</p>
<p>On your emulator or device, each application runs in its own instance of a Dalvik VM. The <code>adb</code>
device daemon allows communication with the VMs from an outside party.</p>
<p>On your development machine, the <code>adb</code> host daemon communicates with the <code>adb</code> device daemon and
allows tools such as DDMS to communicate with the device or emulator. The <code>adb</code> host daemon also
allows you to access shell commands on the device as well as providing capabilities such as
application installation and file transferring.</p>
<p>Each application VM on the device or emulator exposes a debugging port that you can attach to
via DDMS. DDMS can forward any of these ports to a static debugging port (typically port 8700) by
selecting the application that you want to debug in the DDMS user interface. A JDWP debugger can
attach to this static debugging port and debug all the applications that are running on the
device or emulator without having to attach to multiple ports.</p>
<p>If you are using Eclipse, much of these interconnections are hidden from you. DDMS, <code>adb</code>, and a
JDWP debugger are all setup for you and you can access them through the Debug and DDMS
perspectives in Eclipse. If you are developing in a non-Eclipse environment, you have to invoke
these tools manually.</p>
<h2 id="addltools">Additional Debugging Tools</h2>
<p>In addition to the main debugging tools, the Android SDK provides additional tools to help you
debug and profile your applications:</p>
<dl>
<dt><strong><a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/debugging/debugging-ui.html">Heirarchy Viewer
and layoutopt</a></strong></dt>
<dd>Graphical programs that let you debug and profile user interfaces.</dd>
<dt><strong><a href=
"{@docRoot}guide/developing/debugging/debugging-tracing.html">Traceview</a></strong></dt>
<dd>A graphical viewer that displays trace file data for method calls and times saved by your
application, which can help you profile the performance of your application.</dd>
<dt><strong><a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/debugging/debugging-devtools.html">Dev Tools
Android application</a></strong></dt>
<dd>The Dev Tools application included in the emulator system image exposes several settings
that provide useful information such as CPU usage and frame rate. You can also transfer the
application to a hardware device.</dd>
</dl>
<h2 id="tips">Debugging Tips</h2>
<p>While debugging, keep these helpful tips in mind to help you figure out common problems with your
applications:</p>
<dl>
<dt><strong>Dump the stack trace</strong></dt>
<dd>To obtain a stack dump from emulator, you can log
in with <code>adb shell</code>, use <code>ps</code> to find the process you
want, and then <code>kill -3</code>. The stack trace appears in the log file.
</dd>
<dt><strong>Display useful info on the emulator screen</strong></dt>
<dd>The device can display useful information such as CPU usage or highlights
around redrawn areas. Turn these features on and off in the developer settings
window as described in <a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/debugging/debugging-devtools.html">
Debugging with the Dev Tools App</a>.
</dd>
<dt><strong>Get application and system state information from the emulator</strong></dt>
<dd>You can access dumpstate information from the <code>adb shell</code> commands. See
<a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/tools/adb.html#dumpsys">dumpsys and
dumpstate</a> on the adb topic page.</dd>
<dt><strong>Get wireless connectivity information</strong></dt>
<dd>You can get information about wireless connectivity using DDMS.
From the <strong>Device</strong> menu, select <strong>Dump
radio state</strong>.</dd>
<dt><strong>Log trace data</strong></dt>
<dd>You can log method calls and other tracing data in an activity by calling
{@link android.os.Debug#startMethodTracing(String) startMethodTracing()}. See <a
href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/debugging/debugging-tracing.html">Profiling with Traceview and
dmtracedump</a> for details. </dd>
<dt><strong>Log radio data</strong></dt>
<dd>By default, radio information is not logged to the system (it is a lot of
data). However, you can enable radio logging using the following commands:
<pre class="no-pretty-print">
adb shell
logcat -b radio
</pre>
</dd>
<dt><strong>Capture screenshots</strong></dt>
<dd>The Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS) can capture screenshots from the emulator. Select
<strong>Device > Screen capture</strong>.</dd>
<dt><strong>Use debugging helper classes</strong></dt>
<dd>Android provides debug helper classes such as {@link android.util.Log
util.Log} and {@link android.os.Debug} for your convenience. </dd>
</dl>
<p>See the <a href="{@docRoot}resources/faq/troubleshooting.html">Troubleshooting</a> document
for answers to some common developing and debugging issues.</p>
|
