Java or any other language: Which method/class invoked mine?
I would like to write a code internal to my method that print which method/class has invoked it.
(My assumption is that I can't change anything but my method..)
How about other programming languages?
EDIT: Thanks guys, how about JavaScript? python? C++?
This is specific to Java.
You can use Thread.currentThread(). getStackTrace() . This will return an array of StackTraceElements .
The 2nd element in the array will be the calling method.
Example:
public void methodThatPrintsCaller() {
StackTraceElement elem = Thread.currentThread.getStackTrace()[2];
System.out.println(elem);
// rest of you code
}
If all you want to do is print out the stack trace and go hunting for the class, use
Thread.dumpStack();
See the API doc.
Justin has the general case down; I wanted to mention two special cases demonstrated by this snippit:
import java.util.Comparator;
public class WhoCalledMe {
public static void main(String[] args) {
((Comparator)(new SomeReifiedGeneric())).compare(null, null);
new WhoCalledMe().new SomeInnerClass().someInnerMethod();
}
public static StackTraceElement getCaller() {
//since it's a library function we use 3 instead of 2 to ignore ourself
return Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()[3];
}
private void somePrivateMethod() {
System.out.println("somePrivateMethod() called by: " + WhoCalledMe.getCaller());
}
private class SomeInnerClass {
public void someInnerMethod() {
somePrivateMethod();
}
}
}
class SomeReifiedGeneric implements Comparator<SomeReifiedGeneric> {
public int compare(SomeReifiedGeneric o1, SomeReifiedGeneric o2) {
System.out.println("SomeRefiedGeneric.compare() called by: " + WhoCalledMe.getCaller());
return 0;
}
}
This prints:
SomeRefiedGeneric.compare() called by: SomeReifiedGeneric.compare(WhoCalledMe.java:1)
somePrivateMethod() called by: WhoCalledMe.access$0(WhoCalledMe.java:14)
Even though the first is called "directly" from main() and the second from SomeInnerClass.someInnerMethod() . These are two cases where there is a transparent call made in between the two methods.