Name: nt126004 Date: 02/04/2003


DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
I find it hard to remember which way to print a stack trace depending on the object I have to print the stack trace from. Thread.dumpStack() and Throwable.printStackTrace() have the same symantics. Since consistency in an API is a Good Thing (TM) (See Joshua Bloch's 'Effective Java' for
more detailed logic), I would like to see:

    Thread.dumpStack()

deprecated, and:

    Thread.printStackTrace()

added to the Thread API. This could be further enhanced by duplicating all of the Throwable.xxxStackTrace methods in the Thread class:

    Thread.getStackTrace()
    Thread.printStackTrace(PrintStream s)
    Thread.printStackTrace(PrintWriter s)

(although I think implementing Thread.setStackTrace() is
probably a bad idea!)

This change would make the Java API much easier to use,
since I find it impossible to remember which method
(printStackTrace? dumpStackTrace? dumpStack? printStack?),
is on which class.


REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {
    ; /* do something */
  } catch (Throwable t) {
    /* these two calls have the same symantics. they should be named the same */
    t.printStackTrace();
    Thread.dumpStack();
  }
}
---------- END SOURCE ----------
(Review ID: 180193)
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