jibbix's definitions

animal sniffer

This is a weirdly-named tool for Java apps (commonly, apps for Android-based phones) that checks for compatibility. Each new version of Java has a codename, and they're named after animals (Mantis, Tiger, Dolphin, etc), so the code that checks which "animal" you're running on was called "animal sniffer".

Our intern found the problem when she used Animal Sniffer to look at the libraries we use in our Android apps and found one that was using APIs that don't exist on older Android phones.

by jibbix January 7, 2022