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Author's profile photo Johan Wigert

Determine the current class and method names in ABAP

In some situations, it can be useful to be able to determine the names of the current class and method dynamically instead of using hard-coded strings. I find this particularly useful for logging purposes. I have a helper class which writes to the system log when certain exceptions are triggered. As input to this helper class (or rather the method writing to the system log) I want to provide the names of the class and method where the exception was raised.

Determining the name of the current class

SAP provides the class CL_ABAP_CLASSDESCR for determining some class attributes dynamically. To determine the name of the current class, the following code snippet can be used:

DATA(lv_class_name) = cl_abap_classdescr=>get_class_name( me ).

LV_CLASS_NAME will contain the class name in the following format: \CLASS=ZCL_MY_CLASS

Determining the name of the current method

The only approach I’ve found for determining the name of the current method is by using a function module to read the call stack. If you are aware of a better way of doing this, please leave a comment! The call stack approach looks like this:

DATA lt_callstack TYPE abap_callstack.

CALL FUNCTION 'SYSTEM_CALLSTACK'
  EXPORTING
    max_level = 1
  IMPORTING
    callstack = lt_callstack.

DATA(lv_method_name) = lt_callstack[ 1 ]-blockname.

LV_METHOD_NAME will contain the method name in the following format: MY_METHOD

Happy coding!

This blog post first appeared on the Developer Voyage blog at https://www.developervoyage.com/2019/09/13/determine-the-current-class-and-method-names.html

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      9 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Matthew Billingham
      Matthew Billingham

      Surely the call stack method looks something like this

      CLASS zcl_utilities DEFINITION FINAL.
        PUBLIC SECTION.
          METHODS:
            this_method_name
              RETURNING
                VALUE(result) TYPE STRING.
      ENDCLASS.
      
      CLASS zcl_utilities IMPLEMENTATION.
        METHOD this_method_name.
          CONSTANTS c_previous_method_level TYPE i VALUE 2.
          DATA callstack TYPE abap_callstack.
          CALL FUNCTION 'SYSTEM_CALLSTACK'
              EXPORTING
                max_level = 1
              IMPORTING
                callstack = callstack.
          result = callstack[ c_previous_method_level ]-blockname.
        ENDMETHOD.
      ENDCLASS.
      
      
      CLASS ltc_utilities DEFINITION FOR TESTING RISK LEVEL HARMLESS DURATION SHORT.
        PRIVATE SECTION.
          DATA cut TYPE REF TO zcl_utilities.
          METHODS:
            setup,
            this_method_name.
      ENDCLASS.
      
      CLASS ltc_utilities IMPLEMENTATION.
        METHOD setup.
          cut = new #( ).
        ENDMETHOD.
        
        METHOD this_method_name.
          cl_abap_unit_assert=>assert_equals( exp = 'THIS_METHOD_NAME' act = cut->this_method_name( ) ).
        ENDMETHOD.
      ENDCLASS.

      I've not actually tried this yet. ?

      Author's profile photo Johan Wigert
      Johan Wigert
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for your comment. There is one small change needed to make your code work. You need to adjust the max_level like this:

          CONSTANTS c_previous_method_level TYPE i VALUE 2.
          DATA callstack TYPE abap_callstack.
          CALL FUNCTION 'SYSTEM_CALLSTACK'
              EXPORTING
                max_level = c_previous_method_level
              IMPORTING
                callstack = callstack.

       

      Author's profile photo Matthew Billingham
      Matthew Billingham

      Oh yes. I missed that bit. 

      Author's profile photo Peter Inotai
      Peter Inotai

      You could also use class CL_ABAP_GET_CALL_STACK (with the methods like GET_CALL_STACK( ) or FORMAT_CALL_STACK_WITH_STRUCT()) instead of the function module.

      Peter

      Author's profile photo Johan Wigert
      Johan Wigert
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for your suggestion. That is an interesting approach! So something like this:

          DATA(lt_formatted_stack) = cl_abap_get_call_stack=>format_call_stack_with_struct(
                                       cl_abap_get_call_stack=>get_call_stack( ) ).
          DATA(lv_method_name) = substring_after( val = lt_formatted_stack[ 1 ]-event sub = '=>' ).
      Author's profile photo Peter Inotai
      Peter Inotai

      Yes. Something like that 🙂

      And generally I try to avoid to table[ 1 ] when it's not checked that it's not initial, otherwise it dumps.

      For example:

        DATA(ld_last_event) = VALUE #( lt_formatted_stack[ 1 ]-event OPTIONAL ).
        IF ld_last_event IS NOT INITIAL.
          DATA(lv_method_name) = substring_after( val = ld_last_event sub = '=>' ).
        ENDIF.

       

      Author's profile photo Matthew Billingham
      Matthew Billingham

      I'd use

      ASSERT ld_last_event IS NOT INITIAL.

      because it should never not be initial.

      I've made my code robust(er) now. (And in accordance with DSUG and SAP Guideline, and the clean code project - no pesky typing prefixes... 😉 ).

      CLASS zcl_utilities DEFINITION FINAL.
        PUBLIC SECTION.
          METHODS:
            this_method_name
              RETURNING
                VALUE(result) TYPE STRING.
      ENDCLASS.
      
      CLASS zcl_utilities IMPLEMENTATION.
        METHOD this_method_name.
          CONSTANTS c_previous_method_level TYPE i VALUE 2.
          DATA callstack TYPE abap_callstack.
          CALL FUNCTION 'SYSTEM_CALLSTACK'
              EXPORTING
                max_level = c_previous_method_level
              IMPORTING
                callstack = callstack.
          ASSERT callstack IS NOT INITIAL.
          DATA(line_of_the_method) = SWITCH #( LINES( callstack ) WHEN 1 THEN 1
                                                                  ELSE 2 ).
          result = callstack[ line_of_the_method ]-blockname.
        ENDMETHOD.
      ENDCLASS.
      
      
      CLASS ltc_utilities DEFINITION FOR TESTING RISK LEVEL HARMLESS DURATION SHORT.
        PRIVATE SECTION.
          DATA cut TYPE REF TO zcl_utilities.
          METHODS:
            setup,
            this_method_name.
      ENDCLASS.
      
      CLASS ltc_utilities IMPLEMENTATION.
        METHOD setup.
          cut = new #( ).
        ENDMETHOD.
        
        METHOD this_method_name.
          cl_abap_unit_assert=>assert_equals( exp = 'THIS_METHOD_NAME' act = cut->this_method_name( ) ).
        ENDMETHOD.
      ENDCLASS.
      Author's profile photo Oleg Bashkatov
      Oleg Bashkatov

      The class will always return all stack, but function has option to restrict by level of stack. 
      The code symbols for the function is less than for the class.

      and this class is static... which is not recommended by abap-help.

      Author's profile photo Tilo Koerner
      Tilo Koerner

      CX_ROOT (and thus every exception) has method GET_SOURCE_POSITION which provides the current executed program, the name of the include and the line in the coding. This is not really the wanted class/method but as also non oo functions can raise class based exceptions it works in every situation.

      In case the output is not working you could try catching the exception in question with the option "before unwind"