tracebacks

Tracebacks are records produced by a program when an exception or error occurs. They document the sequence of function calls that led to the point of failure, revealing the path through the program's call stack.

In many languages, a traceback lists the stack frames with the file name, line number, function name, and the line of source code being executed. In Python, for example, a traceback starts with a header like "Traceback (most recent call last):" and then presents each frame from outermost to innermost, followed by the exception type and message. In other contexts the term "stack trace" is used, while "traceback" is common in Python.

Tracebacks are primarily used to diagnose errors: they indicate where the program entered the error and how control flowed to that point. They can be printed to standard output, logged to files, or captured and analyzed programmatically, sometimes with utilities that map frames to source code or to compiled artifacts. They aid debugging, error reporting, and post-mortem analysis.

Limitations and management: tracebacks may be incomplete if code is optimized or if frames are swallowed by exception handling. They may reveal sensitive information, so production environments often sanitize or shorten traces. Developers can adjust traceback verbosity or employ tools that filter frames, present more readable formats, or symbolize traces for easier interpretation.