Release Build Process In Flutter
Hi everyone! today I am back with a new topic let’s start learning about the release build process in a flutter, Software Build and Release refers to the specialized subfield of system administration that focuses on the process of building software from source code for (initially) testing and (ultimately) releasing and distributing the software.
If you’re looking for the best Flutter app development company for your mobile application then feel free to contact us at — support@flutterdevs.com.
Table Of Contents::
What is the difference between build and release?
What is Build and Release Management
Compare Build Configuration Settings
Test a Fresh Install and App Update
Run the App on Various Devices and OS Versions:
What is the difference between build and release?:
A “build” is given by the dev team to the test team. A “release” is the formal release of the product to its customers.
A build when tested and certified by the test team is given to the customers as a “release”. A “build” can be rejected by the test team if any of the tests fail or it does not meet certain requirements. One release can have several builds associated with it.
What is Build and Release Management:
Build and release management is the process of managing, planning, scheduling, and controlling a software build throughout its lifecycle.
Building an application or software includes different stages. Each build has different build numbers and it is constantly worked from a source code storehouse like git. Building an application or programming requires assembling apparatuses like a subterranean insect, expert, Gradle, and so forth. Assemble instruments incorporate the source code records into reusable executable documents or bundles.
Build and Release the executives will control the existing pattern of a product item, the most common way of arranging, making due, planning, and controlling the form in various stages and conditions like the turn of events, testing, organizing, and creation stages.
There are 5 types of environments in build and release infrastructure :
- DEV — The development team keeps up with this climate to compose their code. Just the development team has access to this environment. QA or different groups don’t approach this environment. Dev group uses this environment, for the most part, to write unit test cases.
- QA — QA environment is owned by the testing group and the real testing happens in this environment. The DEV group doesn’t approach the QA environment. After coding is finished, the code is moved from DEV to the QA environment for test execution.
- UAT — User Acceptance Test environment is used by business users to conduct testing after system testing has been completed. In this phase, the product is tested from the business point of view. UAT environment access is restricted only to the business users and on some occasions, temporary access will be provided to the QA team if in case of business users need assistance.
- STAGING — The STAGING environment exactly resembles the production environment. The application installed in the staging environment should match closely with the production environment.
- PROD — The PROD environment is the production environment that is accessed by real users and none of the DEV and QA teams have access to this environment.
Overview:
To ensure your app works in deployment, test your release build in a variety of conditions before submitting the app or app update for review, or distributing to Enterprise users. To catch commonly occurring errors or edge-case situations that might not occur during development, consider the differences between development-environment debug builds and user-environment release builds, shown below.
An app may behave differently on a particular user’s device for a variety of reasons. Different devices and operating system versions offer varying software features, and app updates involve data migrations, keychain access, or default data that are not present in a fresh app installation. Disabled features, frame throttling, or other delays may result in limited device power, system memory, or network availability. Xcode allows development and release build settings to diverge, and disables watchdog timeouts.
Create an Xcode Archive:
To test the specific states of your application client’s insight, make a delivery fabricate. In your Xcode undertaking’s plan supervisor, set the run objective to a device and change the chronicle errand to the Release configuration.
Then, choose the Archive option in Xcode’s Product menu. After the archive builds, the Organizer displays.
Xcode saves app archives on disk so you can refer to a particular build later, for example, to submit the build to App Review after the app passes beta tests. The archives’ distribution workflow offers several ways to test the app:
- TestFlight — TestFlight automates app distribution and submission to reduce the chances of submitting the wrong build to App Review. To distribute an app archive through TestFlight, choose the archive pane’s App Store Connect option.
- Ad Hoc — To distribute your app to testers manually, for example, by emailing them an .ipa file, choose the archive pane’s Ad Hoc option.
- Enterprise — Enterprise distribution is similar to Ad Hoc distribution except that you choose the Enterprise option from the Archive pane. Xcode looks for a different code signing identity for Enterprise app distribution that contains a valid Enterprise distribution certificate.
- Development — The development distribution method signs the release build with your development credentials. This option enables testing if you lack access to team distribution identities. The debugger can attach to a development-signed release build, but be aware that it can mask watchdog timeouts.
For all distribution methods except TestFlight, choose the following options to enhance your chances of discovering a bug that manifests only in the release build:
- Set App Thinning to “All compatible device variants”.
- Check “Rebuild from Bitcode”.
You can access an app archive after distribution to debug a user-reported error. If the issue didn’t surface in beta tests, refer to crash logs and app logging to track down the cause; To attempt to reproduce the issue, check the build version in the crash log, and test a release build from an app archive with a matching version.
Compare Build Configuration Settings:
The Xcode project’s Build Settings support various qualities in light of the dynamic form design. The default build configuration are Debug and Release, which the venture plot guides to the Run errand and Archive task, individually. Since the chronicle task makes the delivery construct, the delivery fabricate can act uniquely in contrast to the form that designers run in the debugger as it connects with fabricate settings.
By default, most build settings match the two configurations. To check for differences, inspect the target’s build settings thoroughly. When a setting varies across configurations, Xcode displays <Multiple values>. To see each value, expand the setting’s disclosure triangle.
To ensure the app’s behavior differs across build configurations as intended, take a moment to consider the full implications of each difference, per setting. In the figure above, the app defines a different Info.plist for the release build.
Disconnect the Debugger:
When Xcode launches an app, it enables a debugger that creates some differences from what users experience:
- The Xcode debugger disables watchdog terminations, which can prevent testers from observing a hang issue while running the app in Xcode. The easiest way to check for watchdog terminations is to disconnect the device from the development machine and launch the app from the home screen.
- Xcode’s debugger prevents apps from being suspended, so launch your app from the home screen to test background processes. For example, NSURLSession implements a background session, but when the app runs in the Xcode debugger, the background session never runs.
Test a Fresh Install and App Update:
Xcode enhances application building and establishment during improvement by refreshing applications steadily. Thusly, as your application’s code changes during improvement, outdated put away information made by an earlier form might wait except if you cleanse the earlier establishment totally. Despite the fact that the application may never again make old information, admittance to it might cause the application to act contrastingly during testing than what clients experience. To forestall this transient reliance, eliminate the application during improvement to guarantee that Xcode introduces a new form. At the point when you eliminate the application, decide to likewise eliminate the application’s earlier information.
There are two exceptions:
- The system preserves App Group data on the device as long as the app in the group is installed. To remove potentially obsolete test data from an App Group container, remove all apps that share the group.
- The system preserves an app’s keychain data on the device even after you delete the app. To clear the keychain, use secItemDelete(_:). If you create a separate utility that removes keychain data, the utility and the app need to share the same application identifier.
If the release build updates a previous version of your app, some users may have the prior version on their device. When your app update aims to support data created by the prior version, test the app update to prevent any regressions. For example, if the updated app changes a file format, or migrates prior data, test the app-update scenario to ensure that the new app properly handles prior app data.
Run the App on Various Devices and OS Versions:
An error may surface only on a particular device, OS version, or a particular combination of the two. To ensure a consistent user experience, test on a wide array of devices and OS versions your app supports.
When diagnosing user-reported issues, pay attention to the user’s device and OS version. See Hardware Model and OS Version in Examining the Fields in a Crash Report. To reproduce a user-reported issue, maintain a robust suite of test devices that vary in device model and OS version. Although it’s possible to run a release build in the Simulator, consider the Simulator a separate device that users don’t use. As such, always test release builds on an actual device.
Check File System Access:
On macOS, users can have different levels of file system access depending on their user account privilege. One way to test the difference that a user’s account privilege makes in your app is to run the app as a guest user. The file system privileges of a guest user fall under the everyone category in Finder’s Get Info pane. By default, the file system access level everyone differs from the default admin access level.
Ensure Network Compatibility:
Debug builds typically run in an isolated network during development, whereas release builds access to varying networks that service your app’s users. Your app can exhibit a problem in one particular network and not another, for example, due to network congestion or network type, such as IPv6 versus IPv4.
- If developers and beta testers run the app in an IPv4 network, be sure to also test an IPv6 connection to catch any potential issues related to DNS64 or NAT64.
- To simulate slow or unreliable internet connections on iOS, you can use the Network Link Conditioner. Enable this feature with the Settings app > Developer > Network Link Conditioner option.
- To debug high-level HTTP issues, run your release build with an HTTP debugging proxy. For low-level issues, like a TCP connection or DNS failure, examine network-level activity for causes.
- To debug lost network connections, ensure that network connections reach their destination with no breakdowns along the way by reviewing your server-side logs. For private networks, consider potential blockages due to firewall configuration, network proxies, or load balancers.
Some network errors are unavoidable, for example, during server or network downtime. Ensure that your app provides clear user instructions on what to do when the network doesn’t function as expected.
Enable Battery-Saving Modes:
Devices can behave differently based on battery level, the amount of time passed since fully charged, or whether the device battery is charging. For example, Core Location enables an app to request a desired accuracy but it may perform less accurately than your app requests depending on the device battery level. Alternatively, if a concurrent app or system process requests a high accuracy, Core Location might provide a higher accuracy than requested, which may consume the device battery faster. To observe an app error that might result from a lower battery level, or lower Core Location accuracy than your app expects, test under either battery-saving mode:
- On macOS, run the app on a Macbook unplugged from the power source.
- On iOS or iPadOS, enable Low Power Mode in Settings > Battery.
To ensure the device is in Low Power Mode, check that the battery indicator is yellow.
Minimize Memory Use:
A user’s device may have less memory available at runtime than testers do either because of varying hardware specifications or the number of apps the device runs concurrently. To simulate an array of user environments, testers need to vary the amount of memory available to your app. One way to limit available memory is to open other apps. On macOS, you can observe memory statistics using Activity Monitor. The difference between the Physical Memory and Memory Used values equals the system’s available memory.
Apps that crash due to memory depletion generate a different kind of crash report, called a jetsam event report.
The volatile nature of memory availability makes it difficult to judge the likelihood of a jetsam event in your app. A good strategy to guard against runtime memory depletion is to proactively minimize your app’s memory requirements using Instruments or MetricKit.
Support User-Defined Input:
Because of the wide range of variation in user-supplied data, apps that support opening users’ files need to anticipate uncommon scenarios, like corrupt or excessively large data. To ensure a good user experience, test bad and unsupported files.
Test Regions and Languages:
The Region user preference setting determines the format of the dates that the OS provides to your app. When a user changes their Region, the system changes the format of every NSDate it supplies to your app. If your app processes dates or times test every language that your app supports to ensure your app can handle all of the possible date formats.
Conclusion:
There is a distinct difference between Build and Release although these two words are often used interchangeably. The main difference between Build and Release in Software Testing is that Build is a version of the software the development team hands over to the testing team for testing purposes while Release is the software the testing team hands over to the customer.
❤ ❤ Thanks for reading this article ❤❤
If I got something wrong? Let me know in the comments. I would love to improve.
Clap 👏 If this article helps you.
Feel free to connect with us:
And read more articles from FlutterDevs.com.
FlutterDevs team of Flutter developers to build high-quality and functionally-rich apps. Hire a flutter developer for your cross-platform Flutter mobile app project on an hourly or full-time basis as per your requirement! You can connect with us on Facebook, GitHub, Twitter, and LinkedIn for any flutter-related queries.
We welcome feedback and hope that you share what you’re working on using #FlutterDevs. We truly enjoy seeing how you use Flutter to build beautiful, interactive web experiences.
