debugging - What's the dSYM and how to use it? (iOS SDK)

Question

Sometimes the compiler produces .dSYM files. I guess this is a debugging related file, but I don't know what it is, and how to use it.

What is a .dSYM? How do I use it?

Answer 1

dSYM files store the debug symbols for your app

Services like Crashlytics use it to replace the symbols in the crash logs with the appropriate methods names so it will be readable and will make sense.

The benefit of using the dSYM is that you don't need to ship your App with its symbols making it harder to reverse engineer it and also reduce your binary size

In order to use to symbolicate the crash log you need to drag the crash log into the device's device logs in the organizer of the machine that compiled the app binary (a machine that stores the dSYM)

If you have the dSYM but don't have the machine the compiled the app binary follow the instructions in this link in order to install the dSYM into the machine.

There is a mac app that helps you symbolicate a crash log in case you need to do it yourself.

For more information please see apple technical note TN2151