Getting the name of the currently executing method

Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace() will usually contain the method you’re calling it from but there are pitfalls (see Javadoc):

Some virtual machines may, under some circumstances, omit one or more stack frames from the stack trace. In the extreme case, a virtual machine that has no stack trace information concerning this thread is permitted to return a zero-length array from this method.

January 2009:
A full code would be (to use with @Bombe's caveat in mind):

/**
 * Get the method name for a depth in call stack. <br />
 * Utility function
 * @param depth depth in the call stack (0 means current method, 1 means call method, ...)
 * @return method name
 */
public static String getMethodName(final int depth)
{
  final StackTraceElement[] ste = Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace();

  //System. out.println(ste[ste.length-depth].getClassName()+"#"+ste[ste.length-depth].getMethodName());
  // return ste[ste.length - depth].getMethodName();  //Wrong, fails for depth = 0
  return ste[ste.length - 1 - depth].getMethodName(); //Thank you Tom Tresansky
}

More in this question.

Update December 2011:

bluish comments:

I use JRE 6 and gives me incorrect method name.
It works if I write ste[2 + depth].getMethodName().

• 0 is getStackTrace(),
• 1 is getMethodName(int depth) and
• 2 is invoking method.

virgo47's answer (upvoted) actually computes the right index to apply in order to get back the method name.

This can be done using StackWalker since Java 9.

public static String getCurrentMethodName() {
    return StackWalker.getInstance()
                      .walk(s -> s.skip(1).findFirst())
                      .get()
                      .getMethodName();
}

public static String getCallerMethodName() {
    return StackWalker.getInstance()
                      .walk(s -> s.skip(2).findFirst())
                      .get()
                      .getMethodName();
}

StackWalker is designed to be lazy, so it's likely to be more efficient than, say, Thread.getStackTrace which eagerly creates an array for the entire callstack. Also see the JEP for more information.

Most answers here seems wrong.

    public static String getCurrentMethod() {
            return getCurrentMethod(1);
    }
    public static String getCurrentMethod(int skip) {
            return Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()[1 + 1 + skip].getMethodName();
    }

Example:

    public static void main(String[] args) {
            aaa();
    }

    public static void aaa() {
            System.out.println("aaa  -> "  + getCurrentMethod( ) );
            System.out.println("aaa  -> "  + getCurrentMethod(0) );
            System.out.println("main -> "  + getCurrentMethod(1) );
    }

Outputs:

aaa  -> aaa
aaa  -> aaa
main -> main

I use this code snippet with the latest Android Studio with the latest Java update. It can be called from any Activity, Fragment, etc.

public static void logPoint() {
    String[] splitPath = Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()[3]
        .toString().split("\\.");

    Log.d("my-log", MessageFormat.format("{0} {1}.{2}",
        splitPath[splitPath.length - 3],
        splitPath[splitPath.length - 2],
        splitPath[splitPath.length - 1]
    ));
}

call it like this

logPoint();

output

... D/my-log: MainActivity onCreate[(MainActivity.java:44)]

I rewritten a little the maklemenz's answer:

private static Method m;

static {
    try {
        m = Throwable.class.getDeclaredMethod(
            "getStackTraceElement",
            int.class
        );
    }
    catch (final NoSuchMethodException e) {
        throw new NoSuchMethodUncheckedException(e);
    }
    catch (final SecurityException e) {
        throw new SecurityUncheckedException(e);
    }
}


public static String getMethodName(int depth) {
    StackTraceElement element;

    final boolean accessible = m.isAccessible();
    m.setAccessible(true);

    try {
        element = (StackTraceElement) m.invoke(new Throwable(), 1 + depth);
    }
    catch (final IllegalAccessException e) {
        throw new IllegalAccessUncheckedException(e);
    }
    catch (final InvocationTargetException e) {
        throw new InvocationTargetUncheckedException(e);
    }
    finally {
        m.setAccessible(accessible);
    }

    return element.getMethodName();
}

public static String getMethodName() {
    return getMethodName(1);
}

MethodHandles.lookup().lookupClass().getEnclosingMethod().getName();