stacktracey

What is stacktracey?

Stacktracey is an npm package that provides a powerful and flexible way to parse, manipulate, and analyze JavaScript stack traces. It helps developers to better understand and debug errors by offering a more readable and structured representation of stack traces.

What are stacktracey's main functionalities?

Parsing Stack Traces

This feature allows you to parse a stack trace from an error object. The parsed stack trace is more readable and structured, making it easier to understand the flow of the error.

const Stacktracey = require('stacktracey');
const error = new Error('Something went wrong');
const stack = new Stacktracey(error);
console.log(stack);

Filtering Stack Frames

This feature allows you to filter stack frames based on certain criteria, such as file names or line numbers. This can be useful for focusing on relevant parts of the stack trace.

const Stacktracey = require('stacktracey');
const error = new Error('Something went wrong');
const stack = new Stacktracey(error);
const filteredStack = stack.withSources.filter(frame => frame.file.includes('myProject'));
console.log(filteredStack);

Converting Stack Traces to String

This feature allows you to convert a parsed stack trace back into a string format, but in a more readable table format. This can be useful for logging or displaying the stack trace in a user-friendly manner.

const Stacktracey = require('stacktracey');
const error = new Error('Something went wrong');
const stack = new Stacktracey(error);
console.log(stack.asTable());

Other packages similar to stacktracey

error-stack-parser

Error-stack-parser is a library that extracts and parses error stack traces. It provides a simple API to parse stack traces into a more readable format. Compared to Stacktracey, it is more focused on just parsing and does not offer as many features for manipulating or filtering stack traces.

stacktrace-parser

Stacktrace-parser is a simple library for parsing JavaScript stack traces. It provides a basic API to convert stack trace strings into structured objects. While it is similar to Stacktracey in terms of parsing capabilities, it lacks the advanced features for filtering and converting stack traces into different formats.

tracey

Tracey is a lightweight library for parsing and formatting stack traces. It offers basic functionality for parsing stack traces and converting them into a more readable format. Compared to Stacktracey, it is less feature-rich but can be a good choice for simpler use cases.

README

StackTracey

Platform-agnostic callstack access helper.

Why

• Simple
• Allows hiding library calls / ad-hoc exclusion (via // @hide marker)
• Provides source text for call locations
• Fetches sources synchronously (even in browsers) via get-source
• Full sourcemap support
• Pretty printing

What for

• Better exception reporting for Node and browsers
• Advanced logging (displaying call locations)
• Assertion printing

How to

npm install stacktracey

StackTracey = require ('stacktracey')

Captures current call stack:

stack = new StackTracey ()            // captures current call stack

Parses stacks from Error object:

stack = new StackTracey (error)       // parses error.stack
stack = new StackTracey (error.stack) // raw string

It is an array instance:

stack instanceof Array // returns true
stack.length           // num entries
stack[0]               // top

Each item exposes:

{
    beforeParse: <original text>,
    callee:      <function name>,
    calleeShort: <shortened function name>,
    file:        <full path to file>,       // e.g. /Users/john/my_project/src/foo.js
    fileShort:   <shortened path to file>,  // e.g. src/foo.js
    fileName:    <file name>',              // e.g. foo.js
    line:        <line number>,             // starts from 1
    column:      <column number>,           // starts from 1

    index:          /* true if occured in HTML file at index page   */,
    native:         /* true if occured in native browser code       */,
    thirdParty:     /* true if occured in library code              */,
    hide:           /* true if marked as hidden by "// @hide" tag   */
}

Accessing sources:

stack = stack.withSources // will return a copy of stack with all items supplied with sources
top   = stack[0]

top = stack.withSource (0) // supplies source for an individiual item

top = StackTracey.withSource (stack[0]) // supplies source for an individiual item

This will return item supplied with source code info (already mapped through sourcemaps):

{
    ... // all previous fields

    line:       <original line number>,
    column:     <original column number>,
    sourceFile: <original source file object>,
    sourceLine: <original source line text>
}

To learn about sourceFile object, read get-source docs.

Cleaning output

stack = stack.withSources.clean

1. Excludes locations marked with isThirdParty (library calls)
2. Excludes locations marked with // @hide comment (user defined exclusion)
3. Merges repeated lines (via .mergeRepeatedLines)

You can augment isThirdParty predicate with new rules:

StackTracey.isThirdParty.include (path => path.includes ('my-lib')) // paths including 'my-lib' will be marked as thirdParty

StackTracey.isThirdParty.except (path => path.includes ('jquery')) // jquery paths won't be marked as thirdParty

P.S. It is better to call .clean on stacks supplied with sources (i.e. after calling .withSources), to make // @hide magic work, and to make isThirdParty work by recognizing proper file names, if your source is compiled from other sources and has a sourcemap attached.

Pretty printing

const prettyPrintedString = new StackTracey ().pretty

It produces a nice compact table layout, supplied with source lines (if available). You can even replace the default NodeJS exception printer with this!

at shouldBeVisibleInStackTrace     test.js:25                              const shouldBeVisibleInStackTrace = () => new StackTracey ()
at it                              test.js:100                             const stack = shouldBeVisibleInStackTrace ()                
at callFn                          node_modules/mocha/lib/runnable.js:326  var result = fn.call(ctx);                                  
at run                             node_modules/mocha/lib/runnable.js:319  callFn(this.fn);                                            
at runTest                         node_modules/mocha/lib/runner.js:422    test.run(fn);                                               
at                                 node_modules/mocha/lib/runner.js:528    self.runTest(function(err) {                                
at next                            node_modules/mocha/lib/runner.js:342    return fn();                                                
at                                 node_modules/mocha/lib/runner.js:352    next(suites.pop());                                         
at next                            node_modules/mocha/lib/runner.js:284    return fn();                                                
at <anonymous>                     node_modules/mocha/lib/runner.js:320    next(0);                  

Array methods

All StackTracey instances expose map, filter, concat, reverse and slice methods. These methods will return mapped, filtered, joined, reversed and sliced stacks, respectively:

s = new StackTracey ().slice (1).filter (x => !x.isThirdParty) // current stack shifted by 1 and cleaned from library calls

s instanceof StackTracey // true
s instanceof Array       // true

Other methods of the Array are supported too, but they will return Array instances, not StackTracey instances. You can convert from array via this:

stack = new StackTracey (array)

..and to array via this (but generally this is not needed — you can pass around StackTracey instances as if they were real Arrays):

Array.from (stack)

Extra stuff

You can compare two locations via this predicate (tests file, line and column for equality):

StackTracey.locationsEqual (a, b)

Applications

• Ololog — a better console.log for the log-driven debugging junkies!