Is there a way to capture the stack trace of an error before redirecting to an error page (in Java)?

Question

When an error occurs in my Spring MVC application, I would like to send an email with the stack trace of the code that caused the error.

I am using the @ControllerAdvice and @ExceptionHandler annotations to redirect to a method that will output the stack trace of exceptions and email that information. However, the stack trace information is for the code that is executing in the error handler, not from the code that caused the error.

Here is the code in the error handler that outputs the stack trace, etc.

for(StackTraceElement stackTraceElement : Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()) {
    logger.error(stackTraceElement);
}

This results in this output:

java.lang.Thread.getStackTrace(Thread.java:1588)
sdcounty.dcss.cat.controllers.ErrorController.handleException(ErrorController.java:120)
sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.invoke(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:215)
org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.invokeForRequest(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:132)
org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.invokeAndHandle(ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.java:110)
org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver.doResolveHandlerMethodException(ExceptionHandlerExceptionResolver.java:362)
org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.AbstractHandlerMethodExceptionResolver.doResolveException(AbstractHandlerMethodExceptionResolver.java:60)
org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.AbstractHandlerExceptionResolver.resolveException(AbstractHandlerExceptionResolver.java:138)
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.processHandlerException(DispatcherServlet.java:1167)
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.processDispatchResult(DispatcherServlet.java:1004)
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:955)
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:877)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:966)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:857)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:621)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:842)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:728)
org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:305)
org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
sdcounty.dcss.cat.ValidationFilter.doFilter(ValidationFilter.java:33)
org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)
org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:222)
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:123)
org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:171)
org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:99)
org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:953)
org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118)
org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:408)
org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1023)
org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:589)
org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:312)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744)

But I was hoping for this output (which is what is displayed in the console):

java.lang.NullPointerException
at sdcounty.dcss.cat.controllers.LegalPaperlessFaceSheetController.displayFaceSheet(LegalPaperlessFaceSheetController.java:713)
at sdcounty.dcss.cat.controllers.LegalPaperlessFaceSheetController.faceSheet(LegalPaperlessFaceSheetController.java:1106)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
at org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.invoke(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:215)
at org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.invokeForRequest(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:132)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.invokeAndHandle(ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.java:110)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.invokeHandleMethod(RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.java:781)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.handleInternal(RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.java:721)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.AbstractHandlerMethodAdapter.handle(AbstractHandlerMethodAdapter.java:83)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:943)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:877)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:966)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:857)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:621)
at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:842)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:728)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:305)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
at sdcounty.dcss.cat.ValidationFilter.doFilter(ValidationFilter.java:33)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:222)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:123)
at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:171)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:99)
at org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve.invoke(AccessLogValve.java:953)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118)
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:408)
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1023)
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:589)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:312)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:744)

Shouldn't you access the stack trace via the `Throwable` object you are handling? You can get it via its [`getStackTrace`](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Throwable.html#getStackTrace%28%29) method. — 5gon12eder, Feb 07 '15 at 00:14

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 07 '15 at 00:15

Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace() returns the current stack trace (which should be no surprise).

If you have a reference to the exception object (say in a local variable e) then you can use e.getStackTrace() to get the stack trace when the exception was thrown (actually, when the exception object was created). This is what gets displayed when you print an exception.

If you'd rather not care about formatting the stack trace yourself, you can also use the printStackTrace(PrintStream) or printStackTrace(PrintWriter) method, which will print the exception details and stack trace to a PrintWriter or PrintStream of your choosing, in the same format that exceptions are normally printed to the console.

Is there a way to capture the stack trace of an error before redirecting to an error page (in Java)?

1 Answers1