Get current stack trace in Ruby without raising an exception

147
votes

I want to log the current backtrace (stacktrace) in a Rails 3 app without an exception occurring. Any idea how?

Why do I want this? I'm trying to trace the calls that are made when Rails looks for a template so that I can choose a part of the process to override (because I want to change the view path for a particular subclassed controller of mine).

I'd like to call it from the file: gems\actionpack-3.2.3\lib\action_dispatch\middleware\templates\rescues\missing_template.erb. I know that's not best practice, but I know it's downstream of the stack from where the search for templates occurs.

3
rubystack-trace
Dirty solution: raise an exception there, rescue it immediately and log e.backtrace. I've seen it in one of the projects I'm working with. Not the nicest approach, but it works. Hope to hear a better solution from someone else, though. - KL-7

3 Answers

189
votes

You can use Kernel#caller:

# /tmp/caller.rb

def foo 
  puts caller # Kernel#caller returns an array of strings
end

def bar 
  foo 
end

def baz 
  bar 
end

baz

Output:

caller.rb:8:in `bar'
caller.rb:12:in `baz'
caller.rb:15:in `<main>'
25
votes

Try using

Thread.current.backtrace
6
votes

I use this to show a custom error page when exception are raised.

rescue_from Exception do |exception|
  logger.error exception.class
  logger.error exception.message
  logger.error exception.backtrace.join "\n"
  @exception = exception


  # ExceptionNotifier::Notifier.exception_notification env, @exception

  respond_to do |format|
    if [AbstractController::ActionNotFound, ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, ActionController::RoutingError, ActionController::UnknownAction].include?(exception.class)
      format.html { render :template => "errors/404", :status => 404 }
      format.js   { render :nothing => true, :status => 404 }
      format.xml  { render :nothing => true, :status => 404 }
    elsif exception.class == CanCan::AccessDenied
      format.html {
        render :template => "errors/401", :status => 401 #, :layout => 'application'
      }
      # format.js   { render :json => { :errors => [exception.message] }, :status => 401 }
      # format.js   { render :js => 'alert("Hello 401")' }
      format.js   { render :template => 'errors/401.js.erb' }

    else
      ExceptionNotifier::Notifier.exception_notification(env, exception).deliver        
      format.html { render :template => "errors/500", :status => 500 } #, :layout => 'im2/application' }
      # format.js   { render :nothing => true, :status => 500 }
      format.js   { render :template => 'errors/500.js.erb' }

    end
  end
end