Super-Charge iOS Debugging With Static Analysis & Clang!

Tired of peaky memory leaks and random crashes in your apps? Trouble finding out where exactly the errors are coming from? Me too! That is why I am so excited to show you a real easy way to get help from XCode.

Static Analysis With XCode

Clang is an open source project that is meant to help programmers identify problems in code. This open source project has been integrated into the latest versions of XCode so that Apple developers can use this to help debug their Mac, iPhone, iPad and iOS applications.

This idea of static analysis goes way beyond what most people are used to when it comes to debugging software. XCode has a much deeper understanding of your code – the static analyzer will travel down each possible path and identify logical errors like unreleased memory (a vexing problem for iOS developers) and dead stores (areas of code that are never read usually indicating a serious logical error).

How to Use XCode’s Static Analysis Feature (Clang)

Using this feature in XCode is so easy that I just stumbled across it one day when I was facilitating one of my intensive three day iPhone Development seminars. Because someone asked, I tried out the “Build and Analyze” option and XCode instantly pointed out the memory leak I was trying to demonstrate.

So here is how you do it: simply open the project that you want to analyze and go to XCode, Build and then Build & Analyze:

Now build your project and if you have any logical errors, you will see them highlighted with blue:

Even cooler if you click on the blue icon that appears, you will get more information visually if the form of blue arrows and details about what specifically the issues are: