How to print a stack trace in Node.js?

Any Error object has a stack member that traps the point at which it was constructed.

var stack = new Error().stackconsole.log( stack )

or more simply:

console.trace("Here I am!")

Now there's a dedicated function on console for that:

console.trace()

As already answered, you can simply use the trace command:

console.trace("I am here");

However, if you came to this question searching about how to log the stack trace of an exception, you can simply log the Exception object.

try {    // if something unexpected  throw new Error("Something unexpected has occurred.");     } catch (e) {  console.error(e);}

It will log:

Error: Something unexpected has occurred.
    at main (c:\Users\Me\Documents\MyApp\app.js:9:15)
    at Object. (c:\Users\Me\Documents\MyApp\app.js:17:1)
    at Module._compile (module.js:460:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:478:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:355:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:310:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:501:10)
    at startup (node.js:129:16)
    at node.js:814:3

If your Node.js version is < than 6.0.0, logging the Exception object will not be enough. In this case, it will print only:

[Error: Something unexpected has occurred.]

For Node version < 6, use console.error(e.stack) instead of console.error(e) to print the error message plus the full stack, like the current Node version does.

Note: if the exception is created as a string like throw "myException", it's not possible to retrieve the stack trace and logging e.stack yields undefined.

To be safe, you can use

console.error(e.stack || e);

and it will work for old and new Node.js versions.