tl;dr Xcode’s lldb allows you to do more than just view variables. You can write code that gets evaulated on the fly. Xcode even shows you completions!

For a long time, the only debugging I did was using print and friends. In fact, I only stumbled across breakpoints when I clicked an Xcode line number by mistake 😭. Since then, it’s become way easier for me to get to the bottom of a bug. Some things I love about breakpoints:

• Call stack
• List of in-scope variables (bye bye print!)
• No more code clutter

And that’s only scratching the surface. As I discovered recently, you can actually type and run swift code inside the debugger! Sort of like a mini REPL.

Example

Consider the following snippet. If JSON decoding fails, you’ll probably want to inspect the bad json.

let (data, _) = try await URLSession.shared.data(from: url)
let canvasAssignments = try decoder.decode([CanvasPlannerItem].self, from: data)
return canvasAssignments

Set a breakpoint at the last line and run. You get this:

The Data description is not very useful. Enter po!

The lldb po command

In the debug console next to the variables view, you’ll see a green (lldb). To demonstrate po, try this:

What po does is print out the description of an expression.

Just po data doesn’t tell us anything more than the Xcode view.

Still not helpful. Looks like we have to add this to our code. Or do we?

print(String(data:encoding:))

Nope! Just type the following into the debug console.

po String(data: data, encoding: .utf8))

This achieves the same thing. Voilà:

The debugger can evaluate real swift code on-the-fly

It’s a whole mini-Xcode, complete with suggestions (I’ve found that it’s snappier than the main editor too):

You can work with all in-scope variables (see the green L), classes/structs/etc (even imported ones).

Multiple lines

If you type po then hit enter, you can add more lines. Strangely, Xcode completions don’t work in this mode.

You can even use emoji variable names!

Conclusion

lldb’s po is really useful for situations where you need a bit more info than just a list of variables, but also don’t want to clutter your code with prints.

More commands: https://lldb.llvm.org/use/map.html