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One of the nice things about MTASC is it’s TRACE function. Utilizing the -trace compile parameter, you can map the TRACE function written in your ActionScript to a static class method of your choice.

You get an additional 3 parameters passed to your trace:

1. Full class package path and name with method
2. File name of the class
3. line number the TRACE command is at in your class

You can get some really informative and nicely formatted trace messages now. Below is something I whipped up this morning to get it to look cool in Flashout; you can use this with trace too if you don’t use Flashout. Modify the tabs to suit.

static public function coolTrace(str:String,
                                 classNameAndMethod:String,
                                 fileName:String,
                                 lineNumber:Number):Void
{
        var splitClassAndMethod:Array = classNameAndMethod.split(".");
        var classAndMethod:String = splitClassAndMethod[splitClassAndMethod.length - 1];
        var classAndMethodArray:Array = classAndMethod.split("::");
        var theClass:String = classAndMethodArray[0];
        var theMethod:String = classAndMethodArray[1];
        
        var theString:String = "message: \t" + str + "\n";
        theString += "\t\t\tclass: \t\t" + theClass + "\n";
        theString += "\t\t\tmethod: \t" + theMethod + "\n";
        theString += "\t\t\tfilename: \t" + fileName + "\n";
        theString += "\t\t\tline: \t\t" + lineNumber;
        
        //trace(theString);
        Flashout.debug(theString);
}

The above, when tested, will give you something alone the lines of this:

Pimp as hell, eh!?

Thanks Kenny for inspiring me to get this to work! Now, if I can just figure out how to make the line # a hyperlink so if you click it, it’ll take you to the line number you clicked on in the correct as file…