powershell: how to print the total call stacks when error happen?

Question

suppose I have the following code, when the error happens, I'd like to see the error that the error first happened at function b, and then happened at function a. But in fact it only tells me the error happen at function a, since function a could be called many times, I don't know which outer function calling function a caused the problem

cls  
function a{  
  Remove-Item "not-exist-item"  
}  
function b{  
  a  
}  
b  

Remove-Item : Cannot find path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\not-exis
t-item' because it does not exist.
At C:\Users\Daniel.Wu\AppData\Local\Temp\2\a.ps1:***3 char:14***
+   Remove-Item <<<<  "not-exist-item"  
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (C:\Program File...\not-exist-item:String) [Remove-Item], ItemNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

Answer 1

If you are on PowerShell v2.0, use Get-PSCallStack. If you're still on v1, use a function like this:

function Get-CallStack {
    trap { continue }
    1..100 | foreach {
        $var = Get-Variable -scope $_ MyInvocation
        $var.Value.PositionMessage -replace "`n"
    }
}

Answer 2

One option is to set

$ErrorActionPreference = 'inquire'

and then invoke the problematic script. On error you are prompted for choices, choose Suspend to enter into the nested prompt mode. Then type

Get-PSCallStack

or even

Get-PSCallStack | fl

to get the current call stack information.

Answer 3

Does get-help about_debuggers provide any illumination?