Bugfender SDK for iOS

Bugfender is a cloud service to collect mobile application logs. Developers can control log sending programmatically and manually for each device. Logs are available at the Bugfender console. You'll need an account.

BugfenderSDK works for iOS 8.0 and better.

Installing the SDK

First of all you will need to add the framework to your project.

Using CocoaPods

1. Create a Podfile if you don't have one: pod init
2. Add a line to your Podfile:
   • Swift or mixed projects: pod 'BugfenderSDK', '~> 1.5'
   • Objective-C projects: pod 'BugfenderSDK/ObjC', '~> 1.5' (doesn't require the Swift runtime)
3. Save the file and run: pod install. This creates an .xcworkspace file for your app. Use this file for all future development on your application.

Manual

If you prefer to install the SDK manually:

1. Go to your Project > Your Target > General > Linked Frameworks and Libraries and drag BugfenderSDK.framework there.
2. Make sure you have SystemConfiguration.framework, Security.framework, MobileCoreServices.framework and libc++.tbd there as well.
3. (If using Swift) Import Bugfender.swift helper file to your project. Add an import BugfenderSDK statement at the top.

Using Bugfender

Once you have the framework in your project, here is how to use it.

Swift

In your AppDelegate class:

import BugfenderSDK

And add the following to application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:):

Bugfender.activateLogger("YOUR_APP_KEY")
Bugfender.enableUIEventLogging() // optional, log user interactions automatically
Bugfender.enableCrashReporting() // optional, log crashes automatically
BFLog("Hello world!") // use BFLog as you would use NSLog

Then you may use BFLog as you would normally use NSLog.

You may also want to specify a logging level by using the following helper functions:

• Bugfender.print(...): Default log.
• Bugfender.warning(...): Warning log.
• Bugfender.error(...): Error log.

Objective-C

Make Bugfender available project-wide by adding the following line to the .pch file:

#import <BugfenderSDK/BugfenderSDK.h>

Get an API key from the Bugfender console. In your AppDelegate call activateLogger when the application starts, like this:

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions
{
    ...
    // Activate the remote logger with an App Key.
    [Bugfender activateLogger:@"YOUR_APP_KEY"];
    [Bugfender enableUIEventLogging]; // optional, log user interactions automatically
    [Bugfender enableCrashReporting]; // optional, log crashes automatically
    BFLog("Hello world!") // use BFLog as you would use NSLog
    ...
}

Then you may use BFLog as you would normally use NSLog.

You may also want to specify a logging level by using the following macros:

• BFLog(...): Default log.
• BFLogWarn(...): Warning log.
• BFLogErr(...): Error log.

Advanced features

Check out the full documentation at CocoaDocs.

Sending issues

Bugfender allows you to send issues to the server. An issue is similar to a session but they are showed in the issues section and you can send issues any time from the app, even if the device is not enabled in the system. Issues are useful to keep track of important errors that you can detect in your code.

For sending an issue you can use the following function:

+(void)sendIssueWithTitle:(NSString*)title text:(NSString*)text;

The text parameter has Markdown notation support on the server, so you can add some style to the text being sent.

Here you have an example on how to send an issue using Markdown for the text:

[Bugfender sendIssueWithTitle:@"App Error" text:@"We have found an **Error**, we need to check it"];

Having your app decide when to send logs

In some special circumstances you may want to send logs, regardless of the enabled state of the device in the Bugfender console, for example in a custom exception handler. Use forceSendOnce to force sending the logs once, and use setForceEnabled: to force it for some period of time.

Device associated data

You can associate information to a device as if it were a dictionary:

[Bugfender setDeviceString:@"[email protected]" forKey:@"user email"];

You can find more information in our blog post Associated device information.

Device identifier

Bugfender automatically generates an identifier for the application install in a device. You can retrieve it to show in your UI or send to your server:

NSString *bugfenderDeviceIdentifier = [Bugfender deviceIdentifier];

To help your users find the device identifier, one easy way to do it is adding it to the app's user defaults, so it shows up in the app's section inside the device Settings.

// Displaying the device identifier in the app's settings.
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setObject:[Bugfender deviceIdentifier] forKey:@"bugfenderDeviceIDKey"];
[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] synchronize];

Log buffer size

Bugfender keeps up to 5 MB worth of log data in the device. This way Bugfender can work offline, and you can get some log data from the past when enabling a device. You can change that limit with setMaximumLocalStorageSize.

// Setting maximum cache size to 1 Mb
[Bugfender setMaximumLocalStorageSize:1024*1024];