Trace:   Instrumentation to Show Function Calls
1 Quick Instructions
2 Installing Calltrace
3 Calltrace Library
instrumenting-enabled
calltrace-eval-handler
annotate
8.5

Trace: Instrumentation to Show Function Calls

Calltrace is a tool that displays all calls to user procedures. It displays the arguments to the calls, and it indents to show the depth of the continuation.

1 Quick Instructions

The trace module is odd; don’t import it into another module. Instead, the trace module is meant to be invoked from the top-level, so that it can install an evaluation handler, exception handler, etc.

To reuse parts of the code of trace, import trace/calltrace-lib. It contains all of the bindings described here, but it but does not set the current-eval parameter.

2 Installing Calltrace

 (require trace) package: trace
Invoking the trace module sets the evaluation handler (via current-eval) to instrument Racket source code.

NOTE: trace has no effect on code loaded as compiled byte code (i.e., from a ".zo" file) or native code (i.e., from a ".dll", ".so", or ".dylib" file).

Calltrace’s instrumentation can be explicitly disabled via the instrumenting-enabled parameter. Instrumentation is on by default. The instrumenting-enabled parameter affects only the way that source code is compiled, not the way that exception information is reported.

Do not load trace before writing ".zo" files. Calltrace instruments S-expressions with unprintable values; this works fine if the instrumented S-expression is passed to the default eval handler, but neither the S-expression nor its byte-code form can be marshalled to a string.

3 Calltrace Library

The trace/calltrace-lib module provides functions that implement trace.

parameter

(instrumenting-enabled)  boolean?

(instrumenting-enabled on?)  void?
  on? : any/c
A parameter that determines whether tracing instrumentation is enabled.

procedure

(calltrace-eval-handler e)  any

  e : any/c
A procedure suitable for use with current-eval, which instruments expressions for Calltrace output (when instrumentation is not disabled via instrumenting-enabled).

Requiring trace installs this procedure as the value for current-eval.

procedure

(annotate e)  syntax?

  e : any/c
Instruments the expression e with Calltrace support. This function is normally used by calltrace-eval-handler.