Should I remove leak canary code/classes for release build?

I found this online.

dependencies {
// Real LeakCanary for debug builds only: notifications, analysis, etc
debugCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android:1.3.1'

// No-Op version of LeakCanary for release builds: no notifications, no analysis, nothing
releaseCompile 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android-no-op:1.3.1'
}

The answers are correct but there's an updated and easier solution as of 4/13/19:

    dependencies {
      debugImplementation 'com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android:2.0-beta-3'
    }

no need for no-ops nor proguard.

but why?

ok but how?

I was using the latest version of the library 2.0-alpha-1 in debug mode, and I didn't find the release dependency of the library. I did the following:

1. I created separate folders for each build mode (release and debug)
2. The path of the debug folder: app/src/debug
3. The path of the release folder: app/src/release

Then I created a class for initializing leak canary called LeakCanaryInitializer.kt (I created it inside the two build folders)

• debug: app/src/debug/java/LeakCanaryInitializer.kt
• release: app/src/release/java/LeakCanaryInitializer.kt

The class in the release mode contains:

import android.content.Context
object LeakCanaryManager {

  fun init(context: Context) {
    // We should do nothing in the release mode
  }
}

The class in the debug mode contains:

import android.content.Context
import leakcanary.LeakCanary
import leakcanary.LeakSentry

object LeakCanaryManager {

  fun init(context: Context) {
    // Here you should write your custom initializing
  }
}

Then in your Application class call the init method:

LeakCanaryManager.init(this)

My gradle file only contains the debug dependency:

debugImplementation "com.squareup.leakcanary:leakcanary-android:2.0-alpha-1"