Is there a way to dump a stack trace without throwing an exception in java?

Question

I am thinking of creating a debug tool for my Java application.

I am wondering if it is possible to get a stack trace, just like Exception.printStackTrace()

Answer 1

You can also send a signal to the JVM to execute Thread.getAllStackTraces() on a running Java process by sending a QUIT signal to the process.

On Unix/Linux use:

kill -QUIT process_id, where process_id is the process number of your Java program.

On Windows, you can press Ctrl-Break in the application, although you usually won't see this unless you're running a console process.

JDK6 introduced another option, the jstack command, which will display the stack from any running JDK6 process on your computer:

jstack [-l]

These options are very useful for applications which are running in a production environment and cannot be modified easily. They're especially useful for diagnosing runtime deadlocks or performance problems.

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Programming/Stacktrace/ http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/share/jstack.html