X-Ray trace doesn't shows inner method call in springboot app

Question

I'm new to aws x-ray and trying to use x-ray with AOP based approach in a springboot application. I was able to get the traces in the aws console, but traces doesn't show inner method call method2() details. Am I missing anything here ?

**Controller class
**
```
import com.amazonaws.xray.spring.aop.XRayEnabled;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/xray")
@XRayEnabled
public class XrayController {

@GetMapping(value = "/method1")
  public String method1() {
    return method2();
  }

public String method2() {
    return "Hello";
  }
}
```

**Aspect Class**

```
import com.amazonaws.xray.entities.Subsegment;
import com.amazonaws.xray.spring.aop.BaseAbstractXRayInterceptor;
import org.aspectj.lang.ProceedingJoinPoint;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Aspect;
import org.aspectj.lang.annotation.Pointcut;
import org.springframework.stereotype.Component;

import java.util.Map;

@Aspect
@Component
public class XRayInspector extends BaseAbstractXRayInterceptor {
  @Override
  protected Map> generateMetadata(ProceedingJoinPoint proceedingJoinPoint, Subsegment subsegment)  {
    return super.generateMetadata(proceedingJoinPoint, subsegment);
  }

@Override
  @Pointcut("@within(com.amazonaws.xray.spring.aop.XRayEnabled) && (bean(*Controller) || bean(*Service) || bean(*Client) || bean(*Mapper))")
  public void xrayEnabledClasses() {}
}

```

When I hit http://localhost:8080/xray/method1 endpoint, AWS Xray Console doesn't show method2() details

![Enter image description here](https://repost.aws/media/postImages/original/IM77lOgIsWSGyNuiuhOOxsqw)

Answer

Hello,

Using XRay with Spring uses AOP [1][2] in order to avoid the need of any code changes and this involves using proxies with your beans [3]. Unfortunately, AOP doesn't work with internal method calls (method within the same object), hence these are not intercepted. This will result XRay to only generate segments on calls between objects, but not for calls within the same object.

As a possible workaround, you can add a custom subsegment to your code as detailed on reference [4].

```java
import com.amazonaws.xray.spring.aop.XRayEnabled;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import com.amazonaws.xray.AWSXRay;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/xray")
@XRayEnabled
public class XrayController {
	
  @GetMapping(value = "/method1")
  public String method1() {
    return method2();
  }

public String method2() {
    AWSXRay.beginSubsegment("method2");
    String s="Hello";
    AWSXRay.endSubsegment();
    return s;
  }
}
```

Alternatively, you can force inter-object communication by calling method2() as another instance of the class:
```java
import com.amazonaws.xray.spring.aop.XRayEnabled;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/xray")
@XRayEnabled
public class XrayController {
	
  @Autowired
  XrayController tc;
	
  @GetMapping(value = "/method1")
  public String method1() {
    return tc.method2();
  }

public String method2() {
    return "Hello";
  }
}
```

Unfortunately, both workarounds require changes to your code

**References**
1. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/xray/latest/devguide/xray-sdk-java-aop-spring.html - Aspect-Oriented Programming for AWS X-Ray Using Spring
2. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/aspect-oriented-programming-for-aws-x-ray-using-spring/ - Aspect-Oriented Programming for AWS X-Ray Using Spring
3. https://docs.spring.io/spring-framework/docs/current/reference/html/core.html#aop-understanding-aop-proxies - Details on AOP proxies
4. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/xray/latest/devguide/xray-sdk-java-subsegments.html - Generating custom subsegments with the X-Ray SDK for Java

X-Ray trace doesn't shows inner method call in springboot app

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