Question

Can I override the behavior of the Function object so that I can inject behavior prior t every function call, and then carry on as normal? Specifically, (though the general idea is intriguing in itself) can I log to the console every function call without having to insert console.log statements everywhere? And then the normal behavior goes on?

I do recognize that this will likely have significant performance problems; I have no intention of having this run typically, even in my development environment. But if it works it seems an elegant solution to get a 1000 meter view on the running code. And I suspect that the answer will show me something deeper about javascript.

Answer 1

The obvious answer is something like the following:

var origCall = Function.prototype.call;
Function.prototype.call = function (thisArg) {
    console.log("calling a function");

    var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1);
    origCall.apply(thisArg, args);
};

But this actually immediately enters an infinite loop, because the very act of calling console.log executes a function call, which calls console.log, which executes a function call, which calls console.log, which…

Point being, I’m not sure this is possible.