I want to know can we attach a debugger to an app running on the smartphone which is published over Google Play Store without modifying the original app?
The reasons for asking this is by default the app which is there over Google playstore are non debuggable, i.e in the AndroidManifest.xml file, either they won't have android:debuggable flag or if it is, then it will be set to false
debuggableflag from AndroidManifest.xml is saved in some central XML files on your device when you install the app. Therefore on a rooted device you can modify this XML file (not sure which file it was exactly, it is one central file for all apps) and change debuggable to true without changing something on the APK itself./data/system/packages.xmlbut over there there is no information w.r.t whether the app is debuggable or not.