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GHC 9.10.3 · lts/ghc-9.10.x · c74966e · 2026-09-27

Moduleghc-internal-9.1003.0Haskell2010

GHC.Internal.Stack

Access to GHC's call-stack simulation

  • 5 types
  • 24 values
valueerrorWithStackTrace :: String -> a
#

Deprecated. error appends the call stack now

Like the function error, but appends a stack trace to the error message if one is available.

Profiling call stacks

2 declarations
valuecurrentCallStack :: IO [String]
#

Returns a [String] representing the current call stack. This can be useful for debugging.

The implementation uses the call-stack simulation maintained by the profiler, so it only works if the program was compiled with -prof and contains suitable SCC annotations (e.g. by using -fprof-auto). Otherwise, the list returned is likely to be empty or uninformative.

HasCallStack call stacks

12 declarations
datadata CallStack
#

CallStacks are a lightweight method of obtaining a partial call-stack at any point in the program.

A function can request its call-site with the HasCallStack constraint. For example, we can define

putStrLnWithCallStack :: HasCallStack => String -> IO ()

as a variant of putStrLn that will get its call-site and print it, along with the string given as argument. We can access the call-stack inside putStrLnWithCallStack with callStack.

Example1 expression
:{putStrLnWithCallStack :: HasCallStack => String -> IO ()putStrLnWithCallStack msg = do  putStrLn msg  putStrLn (prettyCallStack callStack):}

Thus, if we call putStrLnWithCallStack we will get a formatted call-stack alongside our string.

Example1 expression
putStrLnWithCallStack "hello"helloCallStack (from HasCallStack):  putStrLnWithCallStack, called at <interactive>:... in interactive:Ghci...

GHC solves HasCallStack constraints in three steps:

  1. If there is a CallStack in scope -- i.e. the enclosing function has a HasCallStack constraint -- GHC will append the new call-site to the existing CallStack.

  2. If there is no CallStack in scope -- e.g. in the GHCi session above -- and the enclosing definition does not have an explicit type signature, GHC will infer a HasCallStack constraint for the enclosing definition (subject to the monomorphism restriction).

  3. If there is no CallStack in scope and the enclosing definition has an explicit type signature, GHC will solve the HasCallStack constraint for the singleton CallStack containing just the current call-site.

CallStacks do not interact with the RTS and do not require compilation with -prof. On the other hand, as they are built up explicitly via the HasCallStack constraints, they will generally not contain as much information as the simulated call-stacks maintained by the RTS.

A CallStack is a [(String, SrcLoc)]. The String is the name of function that was called, the SrcLoc is the call-site. The list is ordered with the most recently called function at the head.

NOTE: The intrepid user may notice that HasCallStack is just an alias for an implicit parameter ?callStack :: CallStack. This is an implementation detail and should not be considered part of the CallStack API, we may decide to change the implementation in the future.

Instances3IsList, Show, Item
  • IsList CallStackDefined in ghc-internal-9.1003.0 · GHC.Internal.IsList

    Be aware that 'fromList . toList = id' only for unfrozen CallStacks, since toList removes frozenness information.

  • Show CallStackDefined in ghc-internal-9.1003.0 · GHC.Internal.Show
  • type Item CallStack = (String, SrcLoc)Defined in ghc-internal-9.1003.0 · GHC.Internal.IsList
typetype HasCallStack = IP "callStack" CallStack
#

Request a CallStack.

NOTE: The implicit parameter ?callStack :: CallStack is an implementation detail and should not be considered part of the CallStack API, we may decide to change the implementation in the future.

Freeze a call-stack, preventing any further call-sites from being appended.

Property
pushCallStack callSite (freezeCallStack callStack) = freezeCallStack callStack

Source locations

2 declarations
datadata SrcLoc
#

A single location in the source code.

Instances4Eq, Show, Generic, Rep

Internals

12 declarations
datadata CostCentreStack
#

A cost-centre stack from GHC's cost-center profiler.

datadata CostCentre
#

A cost-centre from GHC's cost-center profiler.

valuegetCurrentCCS :: dummy -> IO (Ptr CostCentreStack)
#

Returns the current CostCentreStack (value is nullPtr if the current program was not compiled with profiling support). Takes a dummy argument which can be used to avoid the call to getCurrentCCS being floated out by the simplifier, which would result in an uninformative stack (CAF).

valueclearCCS :: IO a -> IO a
#

Run a computation with an empty cost-center stack. For example, this is used by the interpreter to run an interpreted computation without the call stack showing that it was invoked from GHC.