I'm experiencing a less-than-ideal workflow at the moment. Here's the context:
The project is a hybrid native-web application
The javascript files are either local (in a .bundle) or on a http server
We have a lot of javascript tests, most of which are integration tests and must be ran in the simulator.
Although I love javascript and the idea of a reusable application, I must recognize that Xcode doesn't play fair. The main pain is that, quite often and despite the full clean / simu reset, Xcode will need to compile twice before it takes the javascript changes in account.
I've tried to touch all the javascript files before each build (as a script run build phase).
I've also tried to clear the webview cache before each run:
[[NSURLCache sharedURLCache] removeAllCachedResponses];
None of the two suffice.
tl; dr: What is your workflow when working with javascript files inside an Xcode project, do you like it and how could I improve mine?
Related
There are a lot of questions on SO about how to debug a standalone piece of Javascript - that isn't what I want. None of the previous Eclipse/javascript questions seem to be on point, which surprised me.
I am using Eclipse for Java EE (Neon, the latest version) to develop a JSP/servlet website - a full website, not just javascript, and not just java/jsp - everything together. I can compile my Java and "debug as" on an instance of Tomcat spawned by Eclipse, and the web pages show up inside of a window in Eclipse. I can set and hit Java breakpoints all day long while using "debug as" - but setting breakpoints in javascript doesn't do diddly squat. I've been having to run a standalone instance of Tomcat, deploy war files to it, wait for the war files to decompress, then debug my Javascript inside of Firefox. This is particularly annoying because I'm relatively new to javascript and am doing some complex things on the page (and truth be told, making some silly mistakes a compiler in a typed language would catch for me before letting me waste my time trying to run the code) and the "change, watch Eclipse chew deploying war, wait for Tomcat to chew uncompressing the war, test" cycle is just unacceptably long.
Isn't there an easier way to debug BOTH java and javascript from the same IDE without having to export and deploy WAR files? Is there is a setting I can toggle or something I can install in Eclipse to make it an all-in-one IDE? Ideally I would like to be able to step through, for example, an AJAX call into my servlet AND watch what happens in the javascript after it returns - within the same debugging session - so let me preemptively state that copying the changed js file(s) directly to the decompressed folder in tomcat/webapps as a faster way to continue to do split debugging is not the kind of "workaround answer" I'm looking for.
JavaScript debugging is going to be supported in Eclipse Neon 1 release (September 2016). Here is a demo video in which step-by-step process of debugging both front-end and back-end is explained - https://youtu.be/7oQz1Ja1H08 .
Basically, running Chrome / Chromium with extra parameters and tuning source mapping manually is not really user-friendly now, but we are going to improve it for Neon 1 and future releases.
Contributions of any kind are most welcome ;)
What type of tests can be done using UIAutomation module in Instruments in Xcode?
The tests are written in javascripts. One of the test can be done is to check if textfield has particular string or empty.
This type of tests can be done through objective-c also, then why should one use UIAutomation.
You are correct that the types of tests can be done through objective-c (via "UI Testing"), but that is a new feature of Xcode 7. Before Xcode 7, writing tests to automate the UI via instruments was the only way to interact with a device in an Apple-supported manner, and provided commandline support.
Now that Xcode 7 is out with its UI Testing, instruments's UIAutomation is deprecated. If you are writing new tests, you should avoid UIAutomation if you can help it. As of Xcode 8, UIAutomation is actually removed, so definitely don't use it.
Deprecations
•The existing UIAutomation support in Instruments is deprecated. Use UI testing in Xcode 7. (22345571)
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/releasenotes/DeveloperTools/RN-Xcode/Chapters/xc7_release_notes.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40001051-CH5-DontLinkElementID_178
--
All that said, there are still some advantages to instruments and UIAutomation over the new UI Testing (at least as of this moment). Right now you need a lot less to run an instruments test against an attached device. You just need Xcode, a trusted device set up for development, your application on the device, and the script you want to run against the application. Getting the application onto the device is a bit difficult because Apple didn't provide good ways to do that in an automated fashion, but there are a lot of third-party frameworks built up to solve this problem.
On the other hand, UI Testing needs Xcode, a trusted device set up for development, a project set up with your application and your UI Testing target, and then you need to use xcodebuild to run it. Depending on what kind of automation you want to run, having to make sure your machine is set up to build your project might be troublesome or expensive.
I am experiencing some weird behaviors when debugging my MVC Web Application. Some days I experience these issues, but other days everything works fine.
The breakpoints in my javascript files are not getting hit. I get the dreaded "The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document." error.
The debugger will detach from the process without me clicking the Stop Debugging button.
I have tried everything I can think of including:
Refreshing the page in IE to force the browser to get the latest version of the javascript files.
Clean / Rebuild the application in Visual Studio
Close / Reopen Visual Studio
Delete all files from bin and obj folders and rebuild
Cleaned up all old sites from my IIS Express applicationhost.config file
Installed VS2013 Update 4
Deleted / Reinstalled VS2013
Removed / Added IE11
Installed VS2015. Same behavior as VS2013
Deleted all local project files and performed a "Get Latest" from TFS
I can manually attach the debugger to an iexplore process and then I'm able to debug that specific file, but it seems like there is a different iexplore instance for each javascript file. I end up having to guess which one to use for each javascript file. To top it off, the debugger keeps detaching in the middle of me trying to find the right process to attach to. It is nearly impossible, and definitely not feasible to try and debug this way.
Our solution is in TFS, we're using IS Express and the three other developers on our team have none of the problems I have. We all have the exact same hardware.
Another clue that might help is that we are using the OWIN functionality to connect to ACS for security. If I bypass authentication through OWIN / ACS I can step into the javascript. This, however, creates other problems since the code is expecting me to be authenticated. This is not an acceptable workaround and, again, the other developers on the team are using OWIN/ACS and do not have any problems.
I'm extremely frustrated and at a loss for how to go about figuring our what is wrong with my environment. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
I installed Titanium from appcelerator and built the "KitchenSink" example application.
All works well, I'm just wondering where does the javascript code ends up in a built app.
I grep-ed the Xcode project and also the result application as I found it in Library/Application Support/iPhone Simulator/....KitchenSink.app, but I can't find any function names from .js files, not even string texts used within the application.
Nearest information I found is an answer here : How Does Appcelerator Titanium Mobile Work? but I do not understand clearly how the process works.
Is the javascript code being compiled into a binary code (what compiler is used then?), or is it just transformed in some special data-format and interpreted in a running application ?
Update:
This is what I can see in a build/android directory of KitchenSink:
michal:bin mac$ find . -name table_view_layout\*
./assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout.js
./assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_2.js
./assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_3.js
./assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_4.js
./assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_5.js
./classes/org/appcelerator/generated/examples/table_view_layout.class
./classes/org/appcelerator/generated/examples/table_view_layout_2.class
./classes/org/appcelerator/generated/examples/table_view_layout_3.class
./classes/org/appcelerator/generated/examples/table_view_layout_4.class
./classes/org/appcelerator/generated/examples/table_view_layout_5.class
michal:bin mac$ unzip -t app.apk | grep table_view_layout
testing: assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout.js OK
testing: assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_2.js OK
testing: assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_3.js OK
testing: assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_4.js OK
testing: assets/Resources/examples/table_view_layout_5.js OK
I didn't look into app.apk before, all I could see were these class files corresponding to each of the javascript files. Therefore I assumed that on Android javascript is being compiled for JVM. Why can't these be found in app.apk ?
Titanium is not a wrapper around a web view as stated before (though that accurately explains how Phonegap works). Jeff's answer, linked in the question, is a technically correct explanation of how Titanium works, but here's the best version I've heard so far, from Marshall Culpepper:
It's true that Titanium Mobile used the WebView (in both Android and iOS) in the pre-1.0 days. However, this is no longer true and hasn't been since our 1.0 release is March 2010.
Since 1.0, we've shipped two separate Javascript runtimes with our apps, and we are running the Javascript code directly without a WebView. Your entire app from start to finish is now controlled by JS, and we provide a comprehensive set of Native APIs that enable this. Everything from UI widgets (yes, including WebView), Core APIs like Networking, Filesystem, Database, all the way to OS-specific things like JS Activities in Android. On the JS runtime front, we're shipping a forked version of WebKit's JavaScriptCore in iOS and a snapshot of Rhino 1.7 R3 CVS for Android. What we actually do with your javascript source is dependent on the platform, but generally it breaks up like this:
Source is statically analyzed to find references to Titanium modules
Localization strings (strings.xml), App metadata (tiapp.xml), and density specific images all generate platform specific analogs.
In iOS:
An XCode project / configuration is generated
JS Source is base64'd and inlined as a variable into a generated C file
xcodebuild is used to generate the final binaries
provisioning profiles, signing keys etc are applied
iTunes and some other glue are used to send the IPA to your iOS device
In Android:
An Android / Eclipse project is generated
In "Development" mode, JS source is packaged as APK assets
In "Distribution" (production) mode, when you're ready to ship the app, we compile the JS to Java bytecode using the Rhino JSC compiler. You can also enable this during development mode by setting "ti.android.compilejs" to "true" in tiapp.xml, see: http://developer.appcelerator.com/question/100201/enable-android-byte-code-compile
dex, aapt, and other Android SDK tools are used to build and generate the final APK
adb and keytool are used for pushing the APK out to the emulator and/or device
There are many more details that I could dive into specifically on each of these points, but the point I wanted to drive home is that we no longer use the WebView as our Javascript engine. You can however still embed WebViews, and we provide some simple integration that allows you to call Titanium APIs from an embedded WebView.
What jhaynie is saying in your linked question is that Titanium interprets your JS code and converts it into something that is almost identical to Objective-C.
In a web application, the browser reads and interprets your Javascript and runs associated native code (perhaps C++) internally. For instance, the browser might say, "This script is executing getElementById(), so I'll run my own C++ methods to accomplish that." What Titanium is doing is figuring out what that JS->C++ (or in this case, JS->Objective-C) would be in advance, and compiling that. It still leaves an interpreter open where necessary for your dynamic code, but it will convert and compile what it can.
That means you won't find anything that looks similar to what you originally wrote in your script. Anything that must be left to an interpreter is still processed and converted, and your symbols will change (e.g. a call to myTestFunction() might be converted to A(), or 10001101001101 :P).
The usual use of Javascript is to have it interpreted real-time by a running program. That's not what's going on here, and that's why you can't see any trace of your script.
Javascript is pre-processed
Titanium performs the interpretation of your script as any other program would do (such as a web browser). It figures out what dependencies your script has on the Titanium API and sets that stuff up. It then maps your symbols directly into (in the case of the iPhone) Objective-C.
A program usually would read in your script (which is a simply a String), interprets it, and runs C code to accomplish what your script asked for. Titanium does this before-hand to figure out what C code should be run, and does the conversion in advance.
Code is compiled where possible
Based on the interpretation of your code and its dependencies on the Titanium API, Titanium figures out what code can be directly compiled, and what must not be compiled in order to allow for they full dynamics of Javascript. I don't know how it chooses what does and doesn't get compiled, but you could check out the source if you want to know that much detail.
Code that must still be interpretted (left as a script) is still converted into symbols that result in more efficient mapping to native code. So it's still an interpreted script, but that doesn't mean it's still Javascript. This means that these parts of your script will still run faster than usual Javascript.
For iPhone, the compilable C is compiled with GCC to create a native binary.
You have a runnable app*
Now you have an app that you can run on your mobile device. Your compilable code has been compiled and runs at lightning speed, while the rest is converted and still interpreted in a more efficient way which runs at near lightning speed. :P
I hope this makes sense now, because it's all I've got! :D
I'm trying to make some tests on a JavaScript application and someone advised me to use Selenium. I visited its site but I cannot understand what is it and how can I use it for testing. Can someone help me understand?
There are a lot of options and it can be quite daunting to start.
Start with the IDE. It is a Firefox plug-in and would get you writing tests in no time. This is good for semi-automated tests running only on Firefox. And good to get some scripts generated for you to kick-start your tests.
Setup RC. It is a Java program that runs on 'a' box (could be localhost) spawning browsers and running your tests and you can connect to it using variety of languages and program your tests. RC is your friend if you want to automate your testing completely.
As for Grid, it is yet another Java program that manages different RCs on your network which makes it all distributed from browser, load and functionality perspectives. You don't need this initially and when the time comes your work on RC would be reusable 80-100%.
If you're using the Firefox plugin, all you have to do is record a "test". Then generate the testing code in the language you want to run the scripts in. They have an option for Java - and the test can be run standalone (outside of a browser on any platform). The test will attempt to replicate what you did in the browser. If it is able to complete the same steps, your test passes.
Selenium replicates what the browser does when running it's tests and does an admirable job (though not perfect)