In my last post I introduced the low level APIs available in the JVM.
The first tool which I wrote to use the java.lang.instrument API was InTrace which I started in the summer of 2010. This tool was written to allow the execution of any Java program to be traced - method entry, exit, method args, thrown exceptions, caught exceptions and execution path within methods. All of this is made possible by inserting InTrace method calls into classes. This can be done at any time thanks to the JVM's support for redefining already loaded classes.
There are two parts to InTrace. The InTrace Agent allows for the dynamic instrumentation of Java classes to add trace calls. The InTrace UI allows for the remote control of the InTrace Agent and collection of trace output.
To get started with InTrace you can use the Agent and UI directly. However, I have also written an Eclipse plugin which automates the process of launching a program with the agent and connecting to the launched program with the UI.
