Get the name of a calling class without the use of Exceptions

Question

Yes, getting the class name by using an exception is a plausible solution, but I'm looking for something that is a bit more elegant.

String className = new Exception().getStackTrace()[1].getClassName();

This will be used mainly for logging purposes and making sure my cache keywords are component/caller-class specific.

possible duplicate of How to find method name from inside that method? (Java) — Jigar Joshi
– Jigar Joshi, Commented Mar 21, 2011 at 9:35
Well it's more an addendum of this question. Erik answer is a lot more 'eye friendly' and giving the same result. Useful methods on stack are getClassName(), getMethodName(), getLineNumber(), getFileName() — Michael Laffargue
– Michael Laffargue, Commented Mar 21, 2011 at 9:40

Sean Patrick Floyd · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-21 09:41:06Z

12

a) no need to use Exception, you can do this: Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()

b) whatever you are trying to do, don't do it that way. That sounds awful. I guess you should be looking into logging via AOP (here's a small tutorial that looks reasonable).

edited Mar 21, 2011 at 9:41

answered Mar 21, 2011 at 9:36

Sean Patrick Floyd

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5 Comments

Wheezil Over a year ago

There are good reasons to get the calling class. One of the common ones is to call Class.getResourceAsStream() on the caller's class rather than the method's class ("get my class's resource")

Sean Patrick Floyd Over a year ago

@Wheezil sure, but that sounds hacky, as most scenarios will. I'm not saying I never go the hacky way, but I prefer the "clean" way whenever I can.

Wheezil Over a year ago

Also note that the calling class.method is element [2] in the stack trace. Element [1] is the current class.method, and element[0] is Thread.getStackTrace

Wheezil Over a year ago

Agreed this is hacky. I've only ever done this for testing, if I want to centralize the load-from-resource-name into a utility method.

Sean Patrick Floyd Over a year ago

Yes, I also have been guilty of that, just as I use reflection a lot in tests

Erik · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-21 09:35:34Z

3

Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()

answered Mar 21, 2011 at 9:35

Erik

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1 Comment

Daniel Hári Over a year ago

By the way Thread method is the slowest, the fastest way is a custom SecurityManager as measured here: stackoverflow.com/a/2924426/1386911

Startigers · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-08 14:01:23Z

3

On the Oracle JVM you can use the non-standard sun.reflect.Reflection.getCallerClass(2) . This is much faster but should only be used with care. (As it is not cross platform and could change between versions of Java)

edited Jan 8, 2013 at 14:01

Startigers

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answered Mar 21, 2011 at 9:43

Peter Lawrey

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1 Comment

Dag Over a year ago

It did changed between Java7u10 and u11. Beside of this it will be removed in Java8. What a pity, it was the fastest method so far (~ 100x faster then Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()) and I see no replacement.

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