Call Stacks in the Profiling API
The profiling API provides two ways to obtain call stacks: a stack snapshot method, which enables sparse gathering of call stacks, and a shadow stack method, which tracks the call stack at every instant. This topic provides an overview of these two methods.
Stack Snapshot
A stack snapshot is a trace of the stack of a thread at an instant in time. The profiling API supports the tracing of managed functions on the stack, but it leaves the tracing of unmanaged functions to the profiler's own stack walker.
For more information about how to program the profiler to walk managed stacks, see the ICorProfilerInfo2::DoStackSnapshot method in this documentation set, and Profiler Stack Walking in the .NET Framework 2.0: Basics and Beyond in the MSDN Library.
Shadow Stack
Using the snapshot method too frequently can quickly create a performance issue. If you want to take stack traces frequently, your profiler should instead build a shadow stack by using the FunctionEnter2, FunctionLeave2, FunctionTailcall2, and ICorProfilerCallback2 exception callbacks. The shadow stack is always current and can quickly be copied to storage whenever a stack snapshot is needed.
A shadow stack may obtain function arguments, return values, and information about generic instantiations. This information is available only through the shadow stack and may be obtained when control is handed to a function. However, this information may not be available later during the run of the function.
See Also
Concepts
ICorProfilerInfo2::SetEnterLeaveFunctionHooks2 Method