Question

I have a quick-and-dirty unit test framework for my ASP.NET application — an ASPX page with a method that compares expected and actual results and creates a table. It compiles as needed and lets me create and run a bevy of tests quickly, even without VS.NET running.

Here’s an example call:

PrintResult(
   expected:  "$A$1", 
   actual:    RST.ExcelReference.FormatReferences("{{REF:1:0:1:0}}", false, 0, 0),
   arguments: "RST.ExcelReference.FormatReferences(\"{{REF:1:0:1:0}}\", false, 0, 0)");

(Named arguments added for clarity.)

As you can imagine, synchronizing the actual call and the display of that call is a pain.

I know I can’t examine argument values in Environment.StackTrace, only the method definition and line number. But in my case, I don’t need actual argument values. I’m generally calling this method using literals as arguments, so all I need is the line of source code for the entry point into PrintResult() in the Stack Trace.

The source code seems to be available to ASP.NET somehow, as it appears when there is an unhandled exception. How can I access it?

Answer 1

Environment.StackTrace provides you with the file name and line number in each line of the stack trace. It is clearly formatted and should be easily parseable. From the documentation:

The StackTrace property formats the stack trace information for each
method call as follows:

“at FullClassName. MethodName (MethodParams) in FileName :line
LineNumber “

The literal “at” is preceded by three spaces, and the literals “in”
and “:line” are omitted if debug symbols are not available. The
placeholders, FullClassName, MethodName, MethodParms, FileName, and
LineNumber, are replaced by actual values defined as follows:

FullClassName The full name of the class, including the namespace.

MethodName The name of the method.

MethodParms The list of parameter type/name pairs. Each pair is
separated by a comma (“,”). This information is omitted if MethodName
takes zero parameters.

FileName The name of the source file where the MethodName method is
declared. This information is omitted if debug symbols are not
available.

LineNumber The number of the line in FileName that contains the source
code from MethodName for the instruction that is on the call stack.
This information is omitted if debug symbols are not available.

In the question you implied that Environment.StackTrace is not the answer to your question, but it seems like you should be able to parse out the source file name and line number, then go read that line from the file. What am I missing?