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

HPROF Java Profiler

You don't even have to do this in the code. You can attach the Java HPROF to your process and at any point hit Control-\ to output heap dump, running threads, etc . . . without mucking up your application code. This is a bit outdated, Java 6 comes with the GUI jconsole, but I still find HPROF to be very useful.