How do I get the method name from within that method?

Question

I am trying to create a function that returns the method name from within that method:

  public static String getMethodName(final int depth)
  {
    final StackTraceElement[] ste = Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace();
    return ste[ste.length - 1 - depth].getMethodName();
  }

However, when I call this method from Activity.onCreate(), it returns "main" instead of "onCreate".

How do I get the actual method name from within that method?

Answer 1

return ste[1+depth].getMethodName();

If you change return statement as above, you would get immediate calling method name , of cource depth shoould be zero..

Answer 2

Despite the fact initiating an Exception is more expensive way, I would do it anyway.

Log.d("CurrentMethod", new Exception().getStackTrace()[0].getMethodName());

Works if called in onCreate.

Answer 3

A singleton to manage logs:

public class ActiveLog {
public static final String TAG = "TRACE LOG";
private static ActiveLog instance;
private static boolean actif;

public static ActiveLog getInstance() {
    if (null == instance) 
        instance = new ActiveLog();
    return instance;
}

private ActiveLog() {
    ActiveLog.setActif(true);
}

public void log() {
    if(isActif())
        Log.d(TAG, "" + (new Exception().getStackTrace()[1].getClassName())
                      + ": "
                      + (new Exception().getStackTrace()[1].getMethodName()));
}

public static boolean isActif() {
    return actif;
}

public static void setActif(boolean actif) {
    ActiveLog.actif = actif;
}}

An example of use:

public class MyTest {
  public void test() {
    ActiveLog.getInstance().log();
  }
}

The result:

09-05 14:37:09.822: D/TRACE LOG(XXXX): com.TestProject.MyTest: test

Answer 4

I think your problem maybe you are accessing the stack upside down. In the returned value element 0 is the most recent call (which would be getStackTrace()). I think what you are intending to do is:

public static String getMethodName(final int depth) {
  final StackTraceElement[] ste = Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace();
  return ste[1 + depth].getMethodName();
}

This will access the most recent call in the stack (outside of the call to getStackTrace()). For example if you have a method:

public void foo() {
  System.out.println(getMethodName(0));
}

This will print "foo" with the above implementation of the function. Of course you may also want to add some bounds checking to the function since it could easily go outside the array.