automatic app testing in xcode

Currently I'm testing an app that I've written with ios 4. I've spent a good bit of time looking for memory leaks and that side of things seems o.k.

I have a problem where the app seems to "randomly" quit after going from one view to another. Sometimes this will happen after a minute or 2 and sometimes it won't happen at all. Because of this it's really very difficult to determine where the flaw in my application is and under what circumstances because my observations of whats going on is subjective. Also it can get very annoying very quickly sitting there hitting buttons until something happens and then trying to remember the sequence of your actions.

What would be a good method to hunt down the cause of this seemingly r开发者_如何学编程andomly occurring problem?

For example,

I remember speaking with QA engineer before and he spoke of tools that he used to automate a user using an application. He'd leave it running over night and then in the morning he could examine what combination of user actions and under what circumstances a problem occurred.

Are there such tools available for testing iphone applications? Ideally what I'd like to see is a report of

action a

action b

action c

= everything ok.

action a

action c

action b

= there was a problem.

There's also fonemonkey: http://www.gorillalogic.com/fonemonkey

As for random crashes... I am tester, not developer, and random crashes are usually one of the topics I examine more thoroughly on every iphone app. My favorite scenarios are: leave the phone for 2 min, for 10 min, and switch apps (on iOS 4). In all cases it's better to use a real phone (and the older the better), not a simulator (some crashes never happen on simulator). Commonly nested views are affected (e.g. get to some view, let phone sleep, click "Back" button to return to previous view - crash). Usually developers say that incorrect retain / release, autorelease while another object holds pointer, and other memory issues are to blame. Also Device Logs (which will have crash report) usually can pinpoint problem pretty accurately.

Hey.
Instruments by Apple. Apple reference.
Instruments has its limitations and drawbacks, but just try it. It may be confusing at the begging so try to follow tutorial, or some other.

Check out running the app with zombies enabled. Also, instruments in Xcode is very helpful.