Which build modes does Flutter support?
When we are developing in a Flutter framework, it compiles the source code in different modes. These modes are called build modes.
Compile time is not a lot on a small-scale project, compared to large projects. Most frameworks compile the whole code when we click the build button. This might takes hours to compile before we can see our changes.
Flutter's team focuses on this problem and solves this by dividing the compiling process into three phases.
- Debug mode
- Profile mode
- Release mode
These modes help Flutter in lighting fast compile and display the changes in seconds.
Debug mode
This is the default mode for compilation in Flutter. The debug mode is designed not to judge the performance and size of the code. Instead, it focuses on delivering fast and quick changes.
This mode is the first in the phase of development. The application size can be significant in debug mode as it does not focus on optimization and performance. When the developer makes some changes in the source code, it updates the changes and displays them on the screen instead of recompiling the whole code. This method makes the development process faster.
The following features of Flutter development are enabled in this mode.
- Hot reload
- Simulator and emulator execution
Assertions A boolean function that helps develpers in finding the bugs. - Service extensions
The command used to switch to debug mode is as follows:
flutter run
Profile mode
We use profile mode to examine the performance of the application. It optimizes the code to improve performance. We can use this mode for testing our applications.
Some debugging mode features are disabled in profile mode as they are not optimized for better performance. These features are the following:
- The emulator or simulator is disabled in this mode as they focus on performance.
- The profile mode is similar to release mode on mobile devices, but has tracing and some dev tools and service extensions enabled.
The following features from debugging mode have been enabled in this mode.
- Tracing
- Service extensions
- DevTools supports
We can switch to profile mode by using the following command.
flutter run --profile
Release mode
To deploy our application, we will compile it in release mode. The release mode does the following things upon compilation:
- Reduces the size of the application.
- Optimizes our code for faster startups and execution.
It creates an .apk file that can be uploaded on the AppStore or Play Store. The features that are disabled in release mode include the following:
- Assertions
- Debugging functionalities
- Service extensions
- Emulator and simulator support
The following command is used for switching build mode to release mode.
flutter run --release
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