If you are using Log4J as your logging framework, with a little magic you can turn the following stacktrace:

17:47:40,208 ERROR [main] [TestLog4jExtendedStacktrace] An exception has occurred!
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Test exception
 at ...Callee.called(TestLog4jExtendedStacktrace.java:144)
 at ...Caller.call(TestLog4jExtendedStacktrace.java:136)
 ...

Into this (note the class versions at the bottom):

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Test exception
 at ...Callee.called(TestLog4jExtendedStacktrace.java:144)
 at ...Caller.call(TestLog4jExtendedStacktrace.java:136)
 ...

Callee: $Revision: 56 $
Caller: $Revision: 56 $

The main mechanism is as follows:

• Each class contains a static String field called “VCS_VERSION”. This field is set (trough the magic keyword substitution – see the documentation for SVN, CVS) to the last version when the file was committed to your VCS.
• When a stacktrace is sent to the logger, it will look at the classes and if they have the “VCS_VERSION” field, it will output it at the end (it doesn’t annotate the stacktrace itself, because some tools – like IDEs – depend on the stacktrace having a certain format for them to be able to process it – like adding one-click “go-to-line” shortcuts)

As usual, the source can be found in the repository.

Some more implementation details: the current way of modifying the stacktrace is quite hackish (adding a filter and trough reflection modifying the passed in LoggingEvent object). However it has the advantage of being usable without modifying your config files (ie. if you have many config files, but can modify it in only one place in the code, this is a good solution. More “proper” alternatives would be to implement a “wrapper” appender (like AsyncAppender) or a wrapper around Layout, however both of these require you to modify your configuration files.

• Create a textfile with the following content:

  set height 0
  thread apply all bt
  detach
  quit

• Run the following command:

  gdb $EXE -pid $PID -command $TEXTFILE > $OUTPUTFILE

  where:

  • $EXE is the path to the executable
  • $PID is the PID it is running under
  • $TEXTFILE is the file where your’ve saved the previous commands
  • $OUTPUTFILE is the file where you would like your stackdump to be saved.

The cool little crawling logo was taken from HiR, head over there for an explanation.