What's the difference between debugging and running the debug variant?

Question

In Android Studio, you can "Run" or "Debug" your application using these buttons:

Also, you can choose a debug or release build variant in the Build Variants window:

What's the difference between pressing the Debug button and choosing the debug variant, or pressing the Run button and choosing the release variant? Would it make any difference if I debug the debug or the release version?

Answer 1

The build variant generally describes how the application gets built - for example the debug variant builds a debug-able application whereas the release variant is optimized, signed and does not support debugging.

• Run simply launches the application (regardless of what the flavor is).
• Debug essentially does the same thing but will stop at any breakpoints that you might have set ...