How to trace every method called

Question

I have an existing project where I would like to find out all calls being made and maybe dump into a log file.

I had a look at this thread, but didnt help much. I tried PostSharp, and the example shows how to achieve it. But I need to add an attribute to every darn method. Being an existing project, with in-numerous methods that is not a feasible option.

Is there any other means by which I can quickly trace all calls made?

Answer 1

You can do this with Unity Interception

See this article for a sample. The article uses attributes, but my code sample below use the dependency injection system (coding to an interface) to setup interception.

If you want to log MyClass, it goes something like this:

1. Make an interface that contains all methods in MyClass => IMyClass
2. You setup InterfaceInterception (like I've done below) OR there are a few other ways you can set it up. See here for all options.
3. You'll setup a policy to intercept all methods that matches IMatchingRule.
4. All calls will now be intercepted by your ICallHandler implementation.

Code:

//You  will use the code like this:
MyContainer container = new MyContainer();
//setup interception for this type..
container.SetupForInteception(typeof(IMyClass));
 //what happens here is you get a proxy class 
 //that intercepts every method call.
IMyClass cls = container.Resolve<IMyClass>();

 //You need the following for it to work:   
public class MyContainer: UnityContainer
{
    public MyContainer()
    {
        this.AddNewExtension<Interception>();
        this.RegisterType(typeof(ICallHandler), 
                    typeof(LogCallHandler), "MyCallHandler");
        this.RegisterType(typeof(IMatchingRule), 
                       typeof(AnyMatchingRule), "AnyMatchingRule");

        this.RegisterType<IMyClass, MyClass>();
    }
    //apparently there is a new way to do this part
    // http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff660911%28PandP.20%29.aspx

    public void SetupForInteception(Type t)
    {
        this.Configure<Interception>()
        .SetInterceptorFor(t, new InterfaceInterceptor())
        .AddPolicy("LoggingPolicy")
        .AddMatchingRule("AnyMatchingRule")
        .AddCallHandler("MyCallHandler");

    }
}
//THIS will match which methods to log.
public class AnyMatchingRule : IMatchingRule
{
    public bool Matches(MethodBase member)
    {
        return true;//this ends up loggin ALL methods.
    }
}
public class LogCallHandler : ICallHandler
{
    public IMethodReturn 
             Invoke(IMethodInvocation input, GetNextHandlerDelegate getNext)
    {
      //All method calls will result in a call here FIRST.
      //IMethodInvocation has an exception property which will let you know
      //if an exception occurred during the method call.
    }
 }

Answer 2

Use a Profiler in tracing mode. Then you will see how everything does call each other and where the time is spent. Besides commercial profilers there are also free ones. For managed code there is NP Profiler which is quite good.

If you want to go deeper you can use the Windows Performance Toolkit which gives you full information accross all threads and how the interact with each other if you want to know. The only difference is that you get stacks ranging from kernel until your managed frames.

If this is not enough you can instrument your code with a tracing library (either automatically with PostSharp, ....) or manually or with a macro for each source file. I have made a little tracing library which is quite fast and highly configurable. See here. As unique feature it can trace any thrown exception automatically.

private void SomeOtherMethod()
{
  using (Tracer t = new Tracer(myType, "SomeOtherMethod"))
  {
      FaultyMethod();
  }
}

private void FaultyMethod()
{
   throw new NotImplementedException("Hi this a fault");
}

Here comes the output:

    18:57:46.665  03064/05180 <{{         > ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.SomeMethod  
    18:57:46.668  03064/05180 <{{         > ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.SomeOtherMethod  
    18:57:46.670  03064/05180 <         }}< ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.SomeOtherMethod Exception thrown: System.NotImplementedException: Hi this a fault    
at ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.FaultyMethod()  
at ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.SomeOtherMethod()  
at ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.SomeMethod()    
at ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.Demo_Show_Leaving_Trace_With_Exception() 

18:57:46.670  03064/05180 <         }}< ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.SomeOtherMethod Duration 2ms 18:57:46.689  03064/05180 <         }}< ApiChange.IntegrationTests.Diagnostics.TracingTests.SomeMethod Duration 24ms

Answer 3

PostSharp certainly offers a way to apply an aspect to several targets without decorating them with attributes explicitly. See Multicast attributes.

When developing (multicast) aspect you must specify its usage:

[MulticastAttributeUsage(MulticastTargets.Method, TargetMemberAttributes = MulticastAttributes.Instance)]
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Assembly|AttributeTargets.Class|AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = true)]
[Serializable]
public class TraceAttribute : MethodInterceptionAspect
{
// Details skipped.
}

And then apply the aspect in a way that covers your use case (eg. all public members in AdventureWorks.BusinessLayer namespace):

[assembly: Trace( AttributeTargetTypes="AdventureWorks.BusinessLayer.*", AttributeTargetMemberAttributes = MulticastAttributes.Public )]