How do you find out the caller function in JavaScript?

Question

function main()
{
   Hello();
}

function Hello()
{
  // How do you find out the caller function is \'main\'?
}

Is there a way to find out the call

Answer 1

heystewart's answer and JiarongWu's answer both mentioned that the Error object has access to the stack.

Here's an example:

function main() {
  Hello();
}

function Hello() {
  var stack = new Error().stack;
  // N.B. stack === "Error\n  at Hello ...\n  at main ... \n...."
  var m = stack.match(/.*?Hello.*?\n(.*?)\n/);
  if (m) {
    var caller_name = m[1];
    console.log("Caller is:", caller_name)
  }
}

main();

Different browsers shows the stack in different string formats:

Safari  : Caller is: main@https://stacksnippets.net/js:14:8
Firefox : Caller is: main@https://stacksnippets.net/js:14:3
Chrome  : Caller is:     at main (https://stacksnippets.net/js:14:3)
IE Edge : Caller is:    at main (https://stacksnippets.net/js:14:3)
IE      : Caller is:    at main (https://stacksnippets.net/js:14:3)

Most browsers will set the stack with var stack = (new Error()).stack. In Internet Explorer the stack will be undefined - you have to throw a real exception to retrieve the stack.

Conclusion: It's possible to determine "main" is the caller to "Hello" using the stack in the Error object. In fact it will work in cases where the callee / caller approach doesn't work. It will also show you context, i.e. source file and line number. However effort is required to make the solution cross platform.