getting the name of the calling method

Question

Basically i've got a web service that i'm trying to put some kind of usage logging in. To do this i've created a class with a logging method. I instatiate the class on the service and then call the logging method in each of the web methods.

I'm trying to find a way of getting the name of the method that has called the loggong method

Public sub tstmethod
log_object.log_method
end sub

in this case the returned name i'm looking for is "tstmethod"

Everywhere i've seen has said to either use

Dim stackframe As New Diagnostics.StackFrame
Return stackframe.GetMethod.Name.ToString

Or to use

Dim stackframe As New Diagnostics.StackFrame
Return stackframe.GetMethod.DeclaringType.FullName

which i call inside the logging method

getmethod.name.tostring returns the name of the logging method

getmethod.declaringtype.fullname returns the name of the logging class

no matter what i do i cannot find a way of getting the name of the method that called the logging method in this case "tstmethod"

Answer 1

You need to instantiate the StackFrame with an appropriate constructor. For example,

Dim stackframe As New Diagnostics.StackFrame(1)

will skip one stack frame (the logging method itself) and get the frame for the caller of that method.

That said - if at all possible, I'd strongly recommend using a standard logging mechanism such as log4net.

Answer 2

You should be able to get this from the StackFrame with the constructor telling it how many frames to go up the chain, so getting the parent would use 1 (the frame is zero based, so 0 is the current method):

Dim stackTrace as New Diagnostics.StackFrame(1)
Return stackTrace.GetMethod.Name

Answer 3

I will strongly recommend ELMAH

Answer 4

I am using using this code for getting the calling method

string methodName = new StackFrame( 1, true ).GetMethod().Name;
methodName = " [" + methodName + "]";
return methodName;

remember to add namespace Diagnostics

Answer 5

Do not try using StackFrame. It will work only in debug mode which is a killer for application speed.

There is no way you can get this info in Release mode, you should consider changing design and adding parameter.