__LINE__ equivalent in Javascript

Question

Is there any way to get the source line number in Javascript, like __LINE__ for C or PHP?

Answer 1

There is a way, although more expensive: throw an exception, catch it immediately, and dig out the first entry from its stack trace. See example here on how to parse the trace. The same trick can also be used in plain Java (if the code is compiled with debugging information turned on).

Edit: Apparently not all browsers support this. The good news is (thanks for the comment, Christoph!) that some browsers export source file name and line number directly through the fileName and lineNumber properties of the error object.