Javascript console.log() in an iOS UIWebView

javascript ios uiwebview
TinkerTank picture TinkerTank · Jun 28, 2011 · Viewed 73.3k times · Source

When writing a iPhone / iPad app with a UIWebView, the console isn't visible. this excellent answer shows how to trap errors, but I would like to use the console.log() as well.

Answer

NSTJ picture NSTJ · Nov 27, 2013

After consulting with an esteemed colleague today he alerted me to the Safari Developer Toolkit, and how this can be connected to UIWebViews in the iOS Simulator for console output (and debugging!).

Steps:

  1. Open Safari Preferences -> "Advanced" tab -> enable checkbox "Show Develop menu in menu bar"
  2. Start app with UIWebView in iOS Simulator
  3. Safari -> Develop -> i(Pad/Pod) Simulator -> [the name of your UIWebView file]

You can now drop complex (in my case, flot) Javascript and other stuff into UIWebViews and debug at will.

EDIT: As pointed out by @Joshua J McKinnon this strategy also works when debugging UIWebViews on a device. Simply enable Web Inspector on your device settings: Settings->Safari->Advanced->Web Inspector (cheers @Jeremy Wiebe)

UPDATE: WKWebView is supported too

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