Get current stack trace in Ruby without raising an exception

I want to log the current backtrace (stacktrace) in a Rails 3 app without an exception occurring. Any idea how?

Why do I want this? I'm trying to trace the calls that are made when Rails looks for a template so that I can choose a part of the process to override (because I want to change the view path for a particular subclassed controller of mine).

I'd like to call it from the file: gems\actionpack-3.2.3\lib\action_dispatch\middleware\templates\rescues\missing_template.erb. I know that's not best practice, but I know it's downstream of the stack from where the search for templates occurs.

You can use Kernel#caller:

# /tmp/caller.rb

def foo 
  puts caller # Kernel#caller returns an array of strings
end

def bar 
  foo 
end

def baz 
  bar 
end

baz

Output:

caller.rb:8:in `bar'
caller.rb:12:in `baz'
caller.rb:15:in `<main>'

Try using

Thread.current.backtrace

I use this to show a custom error page when exception are raised.

rescue_from Exception do |exception|
  logger.error exception.class
  logger.error exception.message
  logger.error exception.backtrace.join "\n"
  @exception = exception
  
  
  # ExceptionNotifier::Notifier.exception_notification env, @exception

  respond_to do |format|
    if [AbstractController::ActionNotFound, ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, ActionController::RoutingError, ActionController::UnknownAction].include?(exception.class)
      format.html { render :template => "errors/404", :status => 404 }
      format.js   { render :nothing => true, :status => 404 }
      format.xml  { render :nothing => true, :status => 404 }
    elsif exception.class == CanCan::AccessDenied
      format.html {
        render :template => "errors/401", :status => 401 #, :layout => 'application'
      }
      # format.js   { render :json => { :errors => [exception.message] }, :status => 401 }
      # format.js   { render :js => 'alert("Hello 401")' }
      format.js   { render :template => 'errors/401.js.erb' }

    else
      ExceptionNotifier::Notifier.exception_notification(env, exception).deliver        
      format.html { render :template => "errors/500", :status => 500 } #, :layout => 'im2/application' }
      # format.js   { render :nothing => true, :status => 500 }
      format.js   { render :template => 'errors/500.js.erb' }

    end
  end
end