How to get parameter values in a MethodEntry callback

Question

I have the following java code

public class Test {
    public void sayHello(String msg) {
         System.out.println(msg);
    }
}

new Test().sayHello("Bonjour");

I have a jvmti agent attached to java where I catch function calls. I want to get parameter value which was passed to my method (e.g. "Bonjour")

  static void JNICALL cbMethodEntry(jvmtiEnv *jvmti, 
                         JNIEnv* jni_env, jthread thread, jmethodID method) {
        // here I want to get a parameter value "Bonjour"
        // which was passed to my method sayHello("Bonjour")
  }

  jvmtiEventCallbacks    callbacks;
  callbacks.MethodEntry = &cbMethodEntry;

In the callback itself I have a thread and method ID.

Looking into a jvmti.h header I found only this structure dealing with parameters but there are no values.

typedef struct {
    char* name;
    jvmtiParamKind kind;
    jvmtiParamTypes base_type;
    jboolean null_ok;
} jvmtiParamInfo;

How can I get parameter values from my callback?

Answer 1

I'm working on similar tasks. Here are two code examples written in C++. Example 1 shows how to get local variables in the MethodEntry callback using GetLocalVariableTable and GetLocalObject. Example 2 shows how to preform this using BCI (Bytecode Instrumentation).

Example 1:

HandleMethodEntry is the call back method for MethodEntry event. It logs some information about the method's parameters. GetLocalVariableTable retrieves local variable information, which is used by GetLocalObject. Frame at depth zero is the current frame, the first parameter is at slot 0. For non-static frames, slot 0 contains the "this" object. To retrieve "this" object from native method frames, you should use GetLocalInstance instead of GetLocalObject.

The first char of the signature is the value type. This example simply checks the tag of a jobject. For String values, you can use GetStringUTFChars. An example can be found here.

void JNICALL MethodTraceAgent::HandleMethodEntry(jvmtiEnv* jvmti, JNIEnv* jni, jthread thread, jmethodID method)
{
try {
    jvmtiError error;
    jclass clazz;
    char* name;
    char* signature;

    // get declaring class of the method
    error = m_jvmti->GetMethodDeclaringClass(method, &clazz); 
    Errors::Check(error);
    // get the signature of the class
    error = m_jvmti->GetClassSignature(clazz, &signature, 0);
    Errors::Check(error);
    // get method name
    error = m_jvmti->GetMethodName(method, &name, NULL, NULL);
    Errors::Check(error);

    char tmp[1024]; 
    sprintf(tmp, "%s%s", signature, name); 
    if(pFilter->Match("method", tmp)) { // intrested method?
        char out[1024];
        jint param_size = 0;

        error = m_jvmti->GetArgumentsSize(method, &param_size);
        int line_len = sprintf(out, "method_entry: %s%s%, param_size:%d", signature, name, param_size);             

        // visit local variable
        jint entry_count = 0;
        jvmtiLocalVariableEntry *table_ptr = NULL;      
        jlocation cur_loc;

        // this call may return JVMTI_ERROR_ABSENT_INFORMATION, this error is avoided by initialize entry_count to 0 to escape the following for loop
        error = m_jvmti->GetLocalVariableTable(method, &entry_count, &table_ptr);
        error = m_jvmti->GetFrameLocation(thread, 0, NULL, &cur_loc);
        for(int j=0; j<min(param_size, entry_count); j++) {
            if(table_ptr[j].start_location > cur_loc) break;
            if(table_ptr[j].signature[0] == 'L') { //   fully-qualified-class
                jobject param_obj;
                jlong param_obj_tag = 0; 

                error = m_jvmti->GetLocalObject(thread, 0, table_ptr[j].slot, &param_obj); // frame at depth zero is the current frame                  
                m_jvmti->GetTag(param_obj, &param_obj_tag);
                if(param_obj_tag == 0) {
                    m_jvmti->SetTag(param_obj, theTag);
                    param_obj_tag = theTag;
                    ++theTag;
                }
                line_len += sprintf(out + line_len, ", param_obj_tag: %ld", param_obj_tag);
                //line_len += sprintf(out+line_len, ", slot:%d, start:%ld, cur:%ld, param:%s%s", table_ptr[j].slot, table_ptr[j].start_location, cur_loc, table_ptr[j].signature, table_ptr[j].name);

                jni->DeleteLocalRef(param_obj);
                m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr[j].signature));
                m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr[j].name));
                m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr[j].generic_signature));
            }

        } 

        error = m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr));
        Errors::Check(error);


        // put to log list
        logList.push_back(out);

        printf("\r%-10d", logList.size());
    }

    // release resources
    error = m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(name));
    Errors::Check(error);
    error = m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(signature));
    Errors::Check(error);

} catch (AgentException& e) {
    cout << "Error when enter HandleMethodEntry: " << e.what() << " [" << e.ErrCode() << "]" << endl;
}
}

Example 2:

As mentioned in the answer of a similar question, dealing with it in MethodEntry even callback may have preformance problem. You can consider the BCI approach. MTRACE_native_entry is a native method injected to very beginning of every method call. It's called from MTrace's method_entry method.

In MTRACE_native_entry, you need to track back to the intrested method at frame 2 (current frame of the executing native method is at frame 0). Similar example of param trace can be found in another project stackparam in GitHub. However, performence differences of these two methods is not tested.

Unshown code of this example can be found in the jdk document dir demo/jvmti/mtrace. The core step is to inject method_entry in ClassFileLoadHook event callback using java_crw_demo.

This example also shows how to get an param object's field value.

void JNICALL MethodTraceAgent::MTRACE_native_entry(JNIEnv *jni, jclass klass, jthread thread, jint cnum, jint mnum)
{

/* It's possible we get here right after VmDeath event, be careful */
if ( !pTheAgent->vmInitialized || pTheAgent->vmDead || thread == NULL)
    return;


jvmtiError error;
char out[1024];
int line_len = 0;
jvmtiFrameInfo frames[3];
jint cframe;

error = m_jvmti->GetStackTrace(thread, 0, 3, frames, &cframe);
Errors::Check(error);

if(cframe < 3) 
    return;

jmethodID method = frames[2].method;
jclass dec_cls;
char *mtd_name, *dec_cls_sig;

m_jvmti->GetMethodDeclaringClass(method, &dec_cls);
m_jvmti->GetClassSignature(dec_cls, &dec_cls_sig, NULL);
m_jvmti->GetMethodName(method, &mtd_name, NULL, NULL);


jboolean isNative = false;
m_jvmti->IsMethodNative(method, &isNative);
if(isNative)
    return;

line_len += sprintf(out + line_len, "m_en: %s%s", dec_cls_sig, mtd_name);

// operate tags
jint param_size = 0;
jint entry_count = 0;
jvmtiLocalVariableEntry *table_ptr = NULL;      

error = m_jvmti->GetArgumentsSize(method, &param_size);
error = m_jvmti->GetLocalVariableTable(method, &entry_count, &table_ptr);
Errors::Check(error);

line_len += sprintf(out + line_len, ", %d, %d", param_size, entry_count);

for(int j=0; j<min(param_size, entry_count); j++) {
    jobject param_obj = 0;

    if(j==0 && strcmp(table_ptr[0].name, "this") == 0) { // this instance
        error = m_jvmti->GetLocalInstance(thread, 2, &param_obj);
        if(thiso == 0) thiso = param_obj;
        else {
            line_len += sprintf(out + line_len, ", same_this: %d", jni->IsSameObject(thiso, param_obj));
        }

        jfieldID field = jni->GetFieldID(dec_cls, "a", "I");
        jint a = jni->GetIntField(param_obj, field);
        line_len += sprintf(out + line_len, ", a: %d", a);

        Errors::Check(error);
    }
    else if(table_ptr[j].signature[0] == 'L') { // object
        error = m_jvmti->GetLocalObject(thread, 2, table_ptr[j].slot, &param_obj); // frame at depth zero is the current frame      
        Errors::Check(error);
    }

    if(param_obj != 0) {

        //line_len += sprintf(out + line_len, ", modi: %d, this: %d, same: %d", modied, param_obj, jni->IsSameObject(param_obj, modied));

        jlong param_obj_tag = 0; 
        m_jvmti->GetTag(param_obj, &param_obj_tag);
        if(param_obj_tag == 0) {
            error = m_jvmti->SetTag(param_obj, pTheAgent->ctag);
            Errors::Check(error);
            param_obj_tag = pTheAgent->ctag;
            ++pTheAgent->ctag;
        }
        line_len += sprintf(out + line_len, ", param_obj_tag: %ld", param_obj_tag);
        //line_len += sprintf(out+line_len, ", slot:%d, start:%ld, cur:%ld, param:%s%s", table_ptr[j].slot, table_ptr[j].start_location, cur_loc, table_ptr[j].signature, table_ptr[j].name);

        jni->DeleteLocalRef(param_obj);
        m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr[j].signature));
        m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr[j].name));
        m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr[j].generic_signature));
    }

}

error = m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(table_ptr));
Errors::Check(error);


m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(dec_cls_sig));
m_jvmti->Deallocate(reinterpret_cast<unsigned char*>(mtd_name));



logList.push_back(out);

}

The class method used to inject:

public class MTrace {

private static int engaged = 0;

/* At the very beginning of every method, a call to method_entry()
 *     is injected.
 */

private static native void _method_entry(Object thread, int cnum, int mnum);
public static void method_entry(int cnum, int mnum)
{
    if ( engaged != 0 ) {
        _method_entry(Thread.currentThread(), cnum, mnum);
    }
}

/* Before any of the return bytecodes, a call to method_exit()
 *     is injected.
 */

private static native void _method_exit(Object thread, int cnum, int mnum);
public static void method_exit(int cnum, int mnum)
{
    if ( engaged != 0 ) {
       _method_exit(Thread.currentThread(), cnum, mnum);
    }
}
}

Note that these two examples is written for test purpose, not all the return value of jvmti functions are checked. Some other problems may also exist.

Answer 2

You are going to want to start by using GetLocalObject. In this respect I was able to find the following example that should help get you going in the right direction.