Saveen Reddy's blog

Getting the name of current function

Useful snippet for debugging: A function that prints the name of the current function. To be accurate, it prints the name of the calling function.

In C# this is called "reflection".

In python, it is called "introspection".

C# example

// ----------------------------------------

using System;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    public class ReflectionUtil
    {
        public static string get_current_method_name()
        {
            System.Diagnostics.StackFrame stackframe = 
                new System.Diagnostics.StackFrame(1, true);
            
            return stackframe.GetMethod().ReflectedType.Name 
                + "."
                + stackframe.GetMethod().Name ;
        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            System.Console.WriteLine("Program.Main(): My name is: {0}", ReflectionUtil.get_current_method_name());
            System.Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}
// ----------------------------------------

Python Example:

# ----------------------------------------
# get name of the function
#
# The inspect module lets you examine the call stack.
# From that one can determine the name of the caller
# or the name of the current function
#

import inspect

def get_my_name() :
    return inspect.stack()[1][3]

def foo() :
    name = get_my_name()    
    print "foo(): My name is:" , name

class bar :

    def beer( self ) :
        name = get_my_name()    
        print "bar.beer(): My name is:" , name

foo()
b = bar()
b.beer()

#----------------------------------------

C++

This is the Visual Studio 2005 example ...

// -------------------------

#include "stdafx.h"
#include <iostream>
 
using namespace std;
 
void foo()
{
    cout<< __FUNCTION__ << endl;
}
 
int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
   foo();
   return 0;
}
// -------------------------------

I learned this by reading this article on DevX:

• Retrieve a Function's Name Programmatically
• http://www.devx.com/cplus/10MinuteSolution/31491?trk=DXRSS_LATEST

Saveen Reddy
2005-10-08 (updated on 2006-06-26)