Add user-specified information to java stack traces

Question

Is there a way to add additional information to a java stacktrace?

I am developing an interpreter for a script language and would like to see the corresponding lines of script code in the java stacktrace.

The output could look something like this:

java.lang.NullPointerException 
at package.IPF_Try.execute(IPF_Try.java:76) called in script.scr:155
at package.IPF_Block.execute(IPF_Block.java:304) 
at package.IPF_If.execute(IPF_If.java:105)  called in script.scr:130
at package.IPF_Block.execute(IPF_Block.java:304) 
at package.IPF_Main.execute(IPF_Main.java:147) 
...

or this:

java.lang.NullPointerException 
at package.IPF_Try.execute(IPF_Try.java:76)
  --- called in script.scr:155 ---
at package.IPF_Block.execute(IPF_Block.java:304) 
at package.IPF_If.execute(IPF_If.java:105)
 --- called in script.scr:130---
at package.IPF_Block.execute(IPF_Block.java:304) 
at package.IPF_Main.execute(IPF_Main.java:147) 
...

This would make debugging a lot easier, unfortunately google could not find anything to achieve this.

The only way I could think of was to dynamlically generate a lot of classes with methods, whose name contains the information I need and which simply call the next method in the stacktrace - but that seems like a waste of (permgen) memory and cpu cycles to me.

Interesting question. The java compiler puts in debug symbols with file names and line numbers into the bytecode. I suppose if you messed with the bytecode, you could tweak that to better fit your needs. Are JSP compilers doing something like that? — Thilo
– Thilo, Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 7:49
@Thilo - yes - JSPs are compiled to bytecode (sometimes using an intermediary Java form); you can generally find the compiled classes by poking round your server's "working" directories. — McDowell
– McDowell, Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 7:55
the problem is that I cannot simply mess with the bytecode of my methods, because they are called from various scripts, so I can't add one specific piece of information to it. I could however dynamically create some classes that contain the necessary information in their method names or similar, but I am concerned about the performance implications. — ChristophK
– ChristophK, Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 7:55
@McDowell: and does it say index.jsp:304, or __internal_index__jsp.java:5068 ? — Thilo
– Thilo, Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 7:56

McDowell · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-29 07:53:01Z

1

If you translate your scripts to bytecode, you can provide debugging details using the SourceFile and LineNumber attributes.

I am not aware of a mechanism to inject information into the call-stack at runtime.

answered Aug 29, 2011 at 7:53

McDowell

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3 Comments

ChristophK Over a year ago

that's too bad, thank you for the reference on the SourceFile and Linenumber-Attributes. Maybe I will have to generate classes after all, however since I will need a class per file and per line number, this would mean generating several thousand dummy classes...

jelford Over a year ago

@ChristophK, why do you need one class per line? Could you use one class per routine/section in your script instead?

ChristophK Over a year ago

that may work, however I experimented a bit with creating "dummy classes", and even a few thousand seem to use up quite a lot of Permanent Generation space.

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