Method tracing in Julia?

One of my favourite (and most missed) tools for exploring and debugging code is the trace facility often seen in Lisp. I.e., in Common Lisp, I can just trace any function and get a view of its stack trace:

CL-USER> (trace fib)
(FIB)

CL-USER> (fib 3)
  0: (FIB 3)
    1: (FIB 2)
      2: (FIB 1)
      2: FIB returned 1
      2: (FIB 0)
      2: FIB returned 0
    1: FIB returned 1
    1: (FIB 1)
    1: FIB returned 1
  0: FIB returned 2
2

where fib is just a naive recursive implementation of the Fibonacci numbers.

Using Cassette.jl, I have hacked together a similar functionality in Julia:

using Cassette

Cassette.@context TraceCtx

function indent(i::Int, s::String)
    join(fill("", i), " ") * s
end

function Cassette.overdub(ctx::TraceCtx, args...)
    needprint = :all in ctx.metadata.funs || first(args) in ctx.metadata.funs
    if needprint
        if first(args) isa Core.Builtin
            meth = "Primitive $(first(args))"
        else
            meth = "Method $(which(first(args), Base.typesof(args[2:end]...)))"
        end
        println(indent(ctx.metadata.indent, "$meth called with $(args[2:end])"))
    end
    if Cassette.canrecurse(ctx, args...)
        newctx = Cassette.similarcontext(ctx, metadata = (funs = ctx.metadata.funs, indent = ctx.metadata.indent + 4))
        res = Cassette.recurse(newctx, args...)
    else
        res = Cassette.fallback(ctx, args...)
    end
    if needprint
        println(indent(ctx.metadata.indent, "returned $res"))
    end
    res
end

macro trace(expr, funs...)
    expresc = esc(expr)
    funsesc = esc.(funs)
    :(Cassette.overdub(TraceCtx(metadata = (funs = [$(funsesc...)], indent = 0)), () -> $expresc))
end

which can be used as follows:

julia> fib(n) = if n < 2 n else fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) end
fib (generic function with 1 method)

julia> @trace fib(3) fib
   Method fib(n) in Main at REPL[6]:1 called with (3,)
       Method fib(n) in Main at REPL[6]:1 called with (2,)
           Method fib(n) in Main at REPL[6]:1 called with (1,)
           returned 1
           Method fib(n) in Main at REPL[6]:1 called with (0,)
           returned 0
       returned 1
       Method fib(n) in Main at REPL[6]:1 called with (1,)
       returned 1
   returned 2
2

The nice thing about trace is that it can be used interactively, shows all calls of selected functions no matter where and how deep they occur in the call stack and, in case of methods, also shows on which types exactly each call was dispatched.

Is this or a similar functionality already available in Julia, e.g., using some package? If not, did nobody ever wonder which methods – dispatched on which types exactly – get called across the call stack?

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Perhaps you’d like Ghost, or is it now Umlaut?

Slightly different…

Really does not seem to be available already …
In any case, I have put together a small package from the above code snippet: TraceMe.jl

Hope some of you find it useful as well …

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