Call trace in java

Question

Is there a way to output a call trace for a particular thread in java?

I do not want a stack trace. I would like a sequence of calls on each object for tracing.

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 22 '09 at 09:39

14

I think you might find this interesting. It is a java agent which adds entry and exit logging to methods, using the slf4j framework to actually log the output. Then it is a matter of configuring the logging framework to only print out that thread you are interested in.

http://www.slf4j.org/extensions.html#javaagent

(just to be explicit: 1) I wrote it, 2) it works for me :) )

answered Jun 22 '09 at 09:39

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen

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absolutely wonderful ! tried it and it worked great :) thanks for this very useful extension! – stratwine Oct 22 '11 at 09:50
how can I use this on android projects? – RegisteredUser Nov 05 '13 at 22:28
NOTE: This is not production quality. Use Aspect Oriented Programming if you need to manipulate your code after compilation, e.g. with https://eclipse.org/aspectj/ – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Dec 30 '15 at 04:06

Smar · Answer 2 · 2018-04-04T07:59:25.623

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There is btrace, that can be used for this kind of action.

edited Apr 04 '18 at 07:59

answered Feb 07 '11 at 08:35

Smar

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score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 22 '09 at 06:24

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We could create a new Throwable object which will have the call trace. And using some string manipulations, we can get the call stack.

Throwable t = new Throwable();
System.out.println(t.getStackTrace()[1].toString());

I'm not sure retrieving the info this way , is a good practice or not. :)

answered Jun 22 '09 at 06:24

Veera

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Painfully slow, so to be used for local tracing while debugging. – glmxndr Jun 22 '09 at 06:35

mchr · Answer 4 · 2011-06-20T12:30:18.080

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If you want to trace the execution of your Java code you can use a tool called InTrace.

NOTE: InTrace is a free and open source tool which I have written.

edited Jun 20 '11 at 12:30

answered Jun 19 '11 at 19:54

mchr

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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 22 '09 at 06:18

You'd basically want aspect-oriented programming of some form, where the aspect could determine whether the current thread was meant to be logging calls. (The alternative is to explicitly put the logging in every method yourself, which would be painful.)

There are plenty of AOP frameworks in Java, such as AspectJ and Spring (Spring is a lot more than AOP of course).

Applying aspects to every method call in the system could be tricky though... I don't have any experience with AspectJ, but Spring AOP is basically designed to enable AOP around the components. Classes which are effectively unknown to Spring can't be changed easily. Mind you, it's been a while since I've used even Spring AOP - things may have come on since then :)

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Jun 22 '09 at 07:31

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Runtime.traceMethodCalls(), which prints a line for each method call of all objects in all threads

edited Jun 22 '09 at 07:31

laalto

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answered Jun 22 '09 at 06:17

joe

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Sun's hotspot's vm on windows does not seem to output the trace method calls. I've read i need to run java debug with 'java_g '. Any ideas? – JavaRocky Jun 23 '09 at 01:40
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Yes, for me `Runtime.getRuntime().traceMethodCalls(true);` does nothing also. Do I need to pass arguments to `javac` or `java`? – java.is.for.desktop Dec 26 '09 at 17:35
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Still doesn't as of java version "1.8.0_111" – Buzz Moschetti Dec 14 '17 at 19:14
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`Runtime.traceMethodCalls` is likely to almost never have worked - if you're reading this, save yourself the trouble. – valiano Apr 29 '19 at 07:10
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the method suggests that the Java virtual machine emit debugging, if not supported you have nothing – Lho Ben Dec 25 '19 at 15:39

score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 24 '12 at 01:25

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The more easier way than Btrace is using HouseMD, you can get the from here

answered Jun 24 '12 at 01:25

zhongl

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Oct 05 '19 at 22:25

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If you're using IntelliJ, there is plugin called Flameviewer. Please find more details on the below link,

https://github.com/kornilova-l/FlameViewer#uploading-file-to-flameviewer

answered Oct 05 '19 at 22:25

parrotjack

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Call trace in java

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