Is there a way to use [self.view recursiveDescription] in Swift? I am trying to use this method but I am getting the following error:
'UIView' does not have a member named 'recursiveDescription'
Any suggestions?
Is there a way to use [self.view recursiveDescription] in Swift? I am trying to use this method but I am getting the following error:
'UIView' does not have a member named 'recursiveDescription'
Any suggestions?
In order to access private / undocumented Objective-C API (like the -recursiveDescription
method on UIView
) from Swift you can do the following:
UIView
).Declare the private method in the category header:
// UIView+Debugging.h
@interface UIView (Debugging)
- (id)recursiveDescription;
@end
Now you can set a breakpoint and print out the recursive description in LLDB:
po view.recursiveDescription() as NSString
If you want to display the view hierarchy in lldb, you do not have to add any categories or bridging headers or anything like that. When debugging Objective-C code, one would generally use the following command at the (lldb)
prompt:
po [[UIWindow keyWindow] recursiveDescription]
If, though, you've paused in a Swift frame, lldb may expect a Swift expression. You can, though, explicitly tell expr
(the po
abbreviation is actually calling expression
) which language the expression is in:
expr -l objc++ -O -- [[UIWindow keyWindow] recursiveDescription]
The same patterns occur in iOS 8, when viewing the view controller hierarchy, using:
po [UIViewController _printHierarchy]
or, in Swift frame:
expr -l objc++ -O -- [UIViewController _printHierarchy]
In WWDC 2018 Advanced Debugging with Xcode, they suggest getting yourself away from this complicated expr
syntax by defining an alias, poc
, by creating a text file, ~/.lldbinit
with the following line:
command alias poc expression -l objc -O --
Then you can do things like:
poc [UIViewController _printHierarchy]
It's worth noting that Xcode 8 introduced the view debugger (click on ), offering a more interactive way to analyze the view hierarchy, largely eliminating the need for the LLDB recursiveDescription
of the view hierarchy. For more information see WWDC 2016 video Visual Debugging with Xcode. Admittedly, sometimes we end up having to fall back to the recursiveDescription
technique shown above, but most of the time the view debugger makes this a far more natural, intuitive process.
And in Xcode 9, they've expanded this view debugger so it now includes the relevant view controllers, too:
In swift 2.0 you can simply run:
po view.performSelector("recursiveDescription")
In (tested with iOS10 Beta3) swift 3.0 this is a bit more complex:
po let s = view.perform("recursiveDescription"); print(s)
po view.value(forKey: "recursiveDescription")!
First add a category @interface
without @implementation
in your bridging header.
@interface UIView (Debug)
- (id)recursiveDescription;
- (id)_autolayoutTrace; // This one is even sweeter
@end
then in your console
po self.recursiveDescription() as NSString
po self._autolayoutTrace() as NSString
The key here is as NSString
not as String
expression -l objc -O -- [`self.view` recursiveDescription]
There is needed enter it in Objective-C format because UIKit is in Objective-C framework.
Recursive description only exists for debugging purposes. It's not part of the public API and so isn't available to Swift
And Swift is a strict language and doesn't allow you to call functions that haven't been strictly defined.
Objective-C, it's a dynamic language so you can call functions like this.
So what we need to do is to tell the debugger to evaluate this expression in an Objective-C syntax
And the way to do that is to use expression with the option - l objc
-O, tell the debugger that we also want the debug description the same as po would do and -- to indicate that there are no more options.
We need to put put [self.view] view in back ticks.
[`self.view`]
Back ticks is like a preproccess step that says first, evaluate the contents of this in the current frame and insert the result, and then we can evaluate the rest.
My answer is taken from WWDC 2018 Session 412 advanced debugging with Xcode and lldb.
Add to the bridging header a declaration of a category of UIView with that method.
Building on @Rob Mayoff's answer:
extension UIView {
/**
Wrapper for useful debugging description of view hierarchy
*/
var recursiveDescription: NSString {
return value(forKey: "recursiveDescription") as! NSString
}
}