Javascript console.log() in an iOS UIWebView

I have a solution to log, using javascript, to the apps debug console. It's a bit crude, but it works.

First, we define the console.log() function in javascript, which opens and immediately removes an iframe with a ios-log: url.

// Debug
console = new Object();
console.log = function(log) {
  var iframe = document.createElement("IFRAME");
  iframe.setAttribute("src", "ios-log:#iOS#" + log);
  document.documentElement.appendChild(iframe);
  iframe.parentNode.removeChild(iframe);
  iframe = null;    
};
console.debug = console.log;
console.info = console.log;
console.warn = console.log;
console.error = console.log;

Now we have to catch this URL in the UIWebViewDelegate in the iOS app using the shouldStartLoadWithRequest function.

- (BOOL)webView:(UIWebView *)webView2 
shouldStartLoadWithRequest:(NSURLRequest *)request 
 navigationType:(UIWebViewNavigationType)navigationType {

    NSString *requestString = [[[request URL] absoluteString] stringByReplacingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding];
    //NSLog(requestString);

    if ([requestString hasPrefix:@"ios-log:"]) {
        NSString* logString = [[requestString componentsSeparatedByString:@":#iOS#"] objectAtIndex:1];
                               NSLog(@"UIWebView console: %@", logString);
        return NO;
    }

    return YES;
}

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

Here's the Swift solution: (It's a bit of a hack to get the context)

1. You create the UIWebView.

2. Get the internal context and override the console.log() javascript function.

   self.webView = UIWebView()
   self.webView.delegate = self
   
   let context = self.webView.valueForKeyPath("documentView.webView.mainFrame.javaScriptContext") as! JSContext
   
   let logFunction : @convention(block) (String) -> Void =
   {
       (msg: String) in
   
       NSLog("Console: %@", msg)
   }
   context.objectForKeyedSubscript("console").setObject(unsafeBitCast(logFunction, AnyObject.self), 
                                                        forKeyedSubscript: "log")