Getting the name of the currently executing method

Question

Is there a way to get the name of the currently executing method in Java?

Answer 1

We used this code to mitigate potential variability in stack trace index - now just call methodName util:

public class MethodNameTest {
    private static final int CLIENT_CODE_STACK_INDEX;

    static {
        // Finds out the index of "this code" in the returned stack trace - funny but it differs in JDK 1.5 and 1.6
        int i = 0;
        for (StackTraceElement ste : Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()) {
            i++;
            if (ste.getClassName().equals(MethodNameTest.class.getName())) {
                break;
            }
        }
        CLIENT_CODE_STACK_INDEX = i;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("methodName() = " + methodName());
        System.out.println("CLIENT_CODE_STACK_INDEX = " + CLIENT_CODE_STACK_INDEX);
    }

    public static String methodName() {
        return Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()[CLIENT_CODE_STACK_INDEX].getMethodName();
    }
}

Seems overengineered, but we had some fixed number for JDK 1.5 and were a bit surprised it changed when we moved to JDK 1.6. Now it's the same in Java 6/7, but you just never know. It is not proof to changes in that index during runtime - but hopefully HotSpot doesn't do that bad. :-)