trace {base} | R Documentation |
A call to trace
allows you to insert debugging code (e.g., a
call to browser
or recover
) at chosen
places in any function. A call to untrace
cancels the tracing.
Specified methods can be traced the same way, without tracing all
calls to the function. Trace code can be any R expression. Tracing
can be temporarily turned on or off globally by calling tracingState
.
trace(what, tracer, exit, at, print, signature, where = topenv(parent.frame()), edit = FALSE) untrace(what, signature = NULL, where = topenv(parent.frame())) tracingState(on = NULL)
what |
The name (quoted or not) of a function to be traced or untraced. More than one name can be given in the quoted form, and the same action will be applied to each one. |
tracer |
Either a function or an unevaluated expression. The
function will be called or the expression will be evaluated either
at the beginning of the call, or before those steps in the call
specified by the argument at .
See the details section. |
exit |
Either a function or an unevaluated expression. The function will be called or the expression will be evaluated on exiting the function. See the details section. |
at |
optional numeric vector. If supplied, tracer
will be called just before the corresponding step in the body of the
function.
See the details section. |
print |
If TRUE (as per default), a descriptive line is
printed before any trace expression is evaluated. |
signature |
If this argument is supplied, it should be a
signature for a method for function what . In this case, the
method, and not the function itself, is traced. |
edit |
For complicated tracing, such as tracing within a loop
inside the function, you will need to insert the desired calls by
editing the body of the function. If so, supply the edit
argument either as TRUE , or as the name of the editor you
want to use. Then trace() will call edit and
use the version of the function after you edit it. See the details
section for additional information.
|
where |
where to look for the function to be
traced; by default, the top-level environment of the call to
trace .
An important use of this argument is to trace a function when it is called from a package with a namespace. The current namespace mechanism imports the functions to be called (with the exception of functions in the base package). The functions being called are not the same objects seen from the top-level (in general, the imported packages may not even be attached). Therefore, you must ensure that the correct versions are being traced. The way to do this is to set argument where to a function in the namespace. The tracing
computations will then start looking in the environment of that
function (which will be the namespace of the corresponding package).
(Yes, it's subtle, but the semantics here are central to how
namespaces work in R.)
|
on |
logical; a call to tracingState returns TRUE
if tracing is globally turned on, FALSE otherwise. An
argument of one or the other of those values sets the state. If the
tracing state is FALSE , none of the trace actions will
actually occur (used, for example, by debugging functions to shut
off tracing during debugging). |
The trace
function operates by constructing a revised version
of the function (or of the method, if signature
is supplied),
and assigning the new object back where the original was found.
If only the what
argument is given, a line of trace printing is
produced for each call to the function (back compatible with the
earlier version of trace
).
The object constructed by trace
is from a class that extends
"function"
and which contains the original, untraced version.
A call to untrace
re-assigns this version.
If the argument tracer
or exit
is the name of a
function, the tracing expression will be a call to that function, with
no arguments. This is the easiest and most common case, with the
functions browser
and recover
the
likeliest candidates; the former browses in the frame of the function
being traced, and the latter allows browsing in any of the currently
active calls.
The tracer
or exit
argument can also be an unevaluated
expression (such as returned by a call to quote
or
substitute
). This expression itself is inserted in the
traced function, so it will typically involve arguments or local
objects in the traced function. An expression of this form is useful
if you only want to interact when certain conditions apply (and in
this case you probably want to supply print=FALSE
in the call
to trace
also).
When the at
argument is supplied, it should be a vector of
integers referring to the substeps of the body of the function (this
only works if the body of the function is enclosed in { ...}
. In
this case tracer
is not called on entry, but instead
just before evaluating each of the steps listed in at
. (Hint:
you don't want to try to count the steps in the printed version of a
function; instead, look at as.list(body(f))
to get the numbers
associated with the steps in function f
.)
An intrinsic limitation in the exit
argument is that it won't
work if the function itself uses on.exit
, since the existing
calls will override the one supplied by trace
.
Tracing does not nest. Any call to trace
replaces previously
traced versions of that function or method (except for edited
versions as discussed below), and untrace
always
restores an untraced version. (Allowing nested tracing has too many
potentials for confusion and for accidentally leaving traced versions
behind.)
When the edit
argument is used repeatedly with no call to
untrace
on the same function or method in between, the
previously edited version is retained. If you want to throw away
all the previous tracing and then edit, call untrace
before the next
call to trace
. Editing may be combined with automatic
tracing; just supply the other arguments such as tracer
, and
the edit
argument as well. The edit=TRUE
argument
uses the default editor (see edit
).
Tracing primitive functions (builtins and specials) from the base
package works, but only by a special mechanism and not very
informatively. Tracing a primitive causes the primitive to be
replaced by a function with argument ... (only). You can get a bit
of information out, but not much. A warning message is issued when
trace
is used on a primitive.
The practice of saving the traced version of the function back where
the function came from means that tracing carries over from one
session to another, if the traced function is saved in the
session image. (In the next session, untrace
will remove the
tracing.) On the other hand, functions that were in a package, not in
the global environment, are not saved in the image, so tracing expires
with the session for such functions.
Tracing a method is basically just like tracing a function, with the
exception that the traced version is stored by a call to
setMethod
rather than by direct assignment, and so is
the untraced version after a call to untrace
.
The version of trace
described here is largely compatible with
the version in S-Plus, although the two work by entirely different
mechanisms. The S-Plus trace
uses the session frame, with the
result that tracing never carries over from one session to another (R
does not have a session frame). Another relevant distinction has
nothing directly to do with trace
: The browser in S-Plus
allows changes to be made to the frame being browsed, and the changes
will persist after exiting the browser. The R browser allows changes,
but they disappear when the browser exits. This may be relevant in
that the S-Plus version allows you to experiment with code changes
interactively, but the R version does not. (A future revision may
include a “destructive” browser for R.)
The traced function(s) name(s). The relevant consequence is the assignment that takes place.
The version of function tracing that includes any of the arguments except for the function name requires the methods package (because it uses special classes of objects to store and restore versions of the traced functions).
If methods dispatch is not currently on, trace
will load the
methods namespace, but will not put the methods package on the search
list.
Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988) The New S Language. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole.
browser
and recover
, the likeliest
tracing functions;
also, quote
and substitute
for
constructing general expressions.
## Very simple use trace(sum) hist(rnorm(100)) # shows about 3-4 calls to sum() untrace(sum) if(.isMethodsDispatchOn()) { # non-simple use needs 'methods' package f <- function(x, y) { y <- pmax(y, .001) x ^ y } ## arrange to call the browser on entering and exiting ## function f trace("f", browser, exit = browser) ## instead, conditionally assign some data, and then browse ## on exit, but only then. Don't bother me otherwise trace("f", quote(if(any(y < 0)) yOrig <- y), exit = quote(if(exists("yOrig")) browser()), print = FALSE) ## trace a utility function, with recover so we ## can browse in the calling functions as well. trace("as.matrix", recover) ## turn off the tracing untrace(c("f", "as.matrix")) ## Not run: ## trace calls to the function lm() that come from the nlme package ## (The function nlme is in that package, and the package has a namespace, ## so the where= argument must be used to get the right version of lm) trace(lm, exit = recover, where = nlme) ## End(Not run) }