How do I make a thread dump in .NET ? (a la JVM thread dumps)

Question

I have found no way of dumping the stack on all threads in .NET. Neither a signal to be send to the process nor programatic access to all the threads. I can only get access to t

Answer 1

Just to save anyone else the bother here's the port of the above to c#:

    static void WriteThreadInfo(StringBuilder sw, IEnumerable threads)
    {
        foreach(Thread thread in threads)
        {
            if(!thread.IsAlive) continue;
            sw.Append(String.Concat("THREAD NAME: ", thread.Name));

            sw.Append(GetStackTrace(thread));
            sw.AppendLine();
            sw.AppendLine();
        }
    }

    static String GetStackTrace(Thread t)
    {
        t.Suspend();
        var trace1 = new StackTrace(t, true);
        t.Resume();

        String  text1 = System.Environment.NewLine;
        var builder1 = new StringBuilder(255);
        for (Int32 num1 = 0; (num1 < trace1.FrameCount); num1++)
        {
            StackFrame  frame1 = trace1.GetFrame(num1);
            builder1.Append("   at ");
            System.Reflection.MethodBase  base1 = frame1.GetMethod();
            Type  type1 = base1.DeclaringType;
            if (type1 != null)
            {
                String  text2 = type1.Namespace;
                if (text2 != null)
                {
                    builder1.Append(text2);
                    builder1.Append(".");                                                
                }
                builder1.Append(type1.Name);
                builder1.Append(".");
            }
            builder1.Append(base1.Name);
            builder1.Append("(");
            System.Reflection.ParameterInfo [] infoArray1 = base1.GetParameters();
            for (Int32 num2 = 0; (num2 < infoArray1.Length); num2++)
            {
                String text3 = "";
                if (infoArray1[num2].ParameterType != null)
                {
                                text3 = infoArray1[num2].ParameterType.Name;
                }
                builder1.Append(String.Concat(((num2 != 0) ? ", " : ""), text3, " ", infoArray1[num2].Name));
            }
            builder1.Append(")");
            if (frame1.GetILOffset() != -1)
            {
                String text4 = null;
                try
                {
                    text4 = frame1.GetFileName();
                }
                catch (System.Security.SecurityException)
                {
                }
                if (text4 != null)
                {
                    builder1.Append(String.Concat(" in ", text4, ":line ", frame1.GetFileLineNumber().ToString()));
                }
            }
            if (num1 != (trace1.FrameCount - 1))
            {
                builder1.Append(text1);
            }
        }
        return builder1.ToString();
    }

I've not found a way to get a list of all managed threads in C# (only ProcessThreads), so it does look like you need to maintain the list of threads your interested in yourself.

Also I found I couldn't call new Stacktrace(t,true) on a running thread, so have added pause and resumes. Obviously you'll need to consider whether this could cause problems were you to thread dump your production app.

btw, we've put this call on our apps wcf rest interface so it's easy to do.