Find out what class invoked a method

Question

Is there any way, in C#, for a class or method to know who (i.e. what class/ method) invoked it?

For example, I might have

class a{
   public void test(){
         b temp = new b();
         string output = temp.run();
   }
}

class b{
   public string run(){
        **CODE HERE**
   }
}

Output: "Invoked by the 'test' method of class 'a'."

Answer 1

You can look at the stack trace to determine who called it.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.stacktrace.aspx

Answer 2

You could create and examine examine a System.Diagnostics.StackTrace

Answer 3

StackFrame

var frame = new StackFrame(1);

Console.WriteLine("Called by method '{0}' of class '{1}'",
    frame.GetMethod(),
    frame.GetMethod().DeclaringType.Name);

Answer 4

The following expression will give you the calling method.

new StackTrace().GetFrame(1).GetMethod()

Answer 5

StackFrame will do it, as Jimmy suggested. Beware when using StackFrame, however. Instantiating it is fairly costly, and depending on exactly where you instantiate it, you may need to specify MethodImplOptions.NoInlining. If you wish to wrap up the stack walk to find the callee's caller in a uttily function, you'll need to do this:

[MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.NoInlining)]
public static MethodBase GetThisCaller()
{
    StackFrame frame = StackFrame(2); // Get caller of the method you want
                                      // the caller for, not the immediate caller
    MethodBase method = frame.GetMethod();
    return method;
}