Use of Debugger in Android Studio

Debugging in Android Studio

Last night I was struggling with my code, which stopped running suddenly(that too without prior notice....not fair.  right ??) I was like clueless at that moment. I had no options left but examining the code thoroughly for the third time. I did the same, and the result remained same as well. Yeah...I couldn’t find the bug even after giving it a third try. That's why I love handling compile time errors rather than these runtime or logical ones. At least with compile time errors there is a learning, while in later case it's all your carelessness(in most of the cases). Well, when I had no alternatives left, I thought let’s try debugging this project. Yes....you heard it right...I had never used debugger before. Trust me guys....It's an awesome thing to be used. At least in my case, It helped me a lot. If you are also a beginner like me, then don’t waste your time in debugging projects by yourself(like I did). Learn how to use “Debugger” instead. It will save both your time and energy.

Of course use of log messages is an another way of debugging your project. But once you will use the debugger, you will get the difference. I personally used to love using log messages but it requires some extra efforts which debugger does that for us with just a click only.

To start debugging, click Debug in the tool bar. Android Studio builds an APK, signs it with a debug key, installs it on your selected device, then runs it and opens the Debug window.

If your app is already running on a connected device or emulator, you can start debugging as follows:

1. Click Attach debugger to Android process .
2. In the Choose Process dialog, select the process you want to attach the debugger to.
   By default, the debugger shows the device and app process for the current project, as well as any connected hardware devices or virtual devices on your computer. Select Show all processes to show all processes on all devices; the display includes any services that your app created as well as system processes, for example.
   From the Debugger menu, you can select a different debug type. By default, Android Studio uses the Auto debug type to select the best debugger option for you, based on whether your project includes Java or C/C++ code.
3. Click OK.
   The Debug window appears. In this case, notice the two tabs to the right of the Debug window title: one tab is for debugging native code and the other for Java code, as indicated by -java.

Separate debugging sessions have separate tabs and different port numbers, which are displayed in parentheses in the tab.

4. To end a debugging session, click the tab for the session, and then click Terminate .

Note: The Android Studio debugger and garbage collector are loosely integrated. The Android virtual machine guarantees that any object the debugger is aware of is not garbage collected until after the debugger disconnects. This can result in a buildup of objects over time while the debugger is connected.

You can find complete Documentation here