Unknown console API in JS

Are you a fan of console.log when you debug (instead of using debugger)? Or you want to make better logging for your scripts / applications?

You are in the right place! In this article, I am going to show you some console methods that you probably don’t know that are going to make your logs better :)

Okay, I’m sure you know this one. But did you know you can stylize your text. You can do this by putting %c and defining the style in the following parameter (inline css format) before the text you want to stylize.

console.log(
  "%c This is a stylized text",
  "color:red;text-decoration: underline;"
);

console.log(
  "%c This is a red text %c and a blue text",
  "color:red",
  "color:blue"
);

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How many times when doing React you wanted to see how many times a component renders? Yep you can see it with the React Developper Tools but it’s not enough quick for me :) So you can make a counter thanks to console.count:

function MyComponent() {
  console.count("Render counter");

  return <p>A simple component</p>;
}

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If you want to display an error message when a specific assertion is false you can use console.assert:

const useMyContext = () => {
  const myContextValues = useContext(MyContext);

  // You probably want to throw an error if it happens
  // It's only an example
  console.assert(
    myContextValue === undefined,
    "useMyContext has to be used below MyProvider"
  );

  return myContextValues;
};

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console.dir allows you to show a better description of objects. For example when you console.log a function it will only stringify the function, but with console.dir it will show you all properties:

function myMethod() {}

console.dir(myMethod);

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If you have a lot of logs, it can be difficult to keep track of all these logs. Fortunately, console.group is here for you.

function myMethod() {
  console.group("My method optional label");

  console.log("Log that will be group");

  console.info("With this one");

  console.error("And this one too");

  console.groupEnd("My method optional label");
}

myMethod();

console.log('Outside log');

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If you want to display data inside a table, you can do it with console.table. The first parameter is the data to display (an array or object). The second one is the columns to display (optional parameter).

console.table(
  [
    {
      name: "First algo",
      duration: "3.2s",
      other: "Hello",
    },
    {
      name: "Second algo",
      duration: "4.1s",
      other: "Guys and girls",
    },
  ],
  ["name", "duration"]
);

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When you want to see how long a method takes to run you can use performance.now() otherwise even easier console.time(), console.timeEnd() and console.timeLog():

function myMethod() {
  console.time("A label");

  // Do some process

  // If you want to log the time during the process
  console.timeLog("A label");

  // Other process

  // Will print how long the method takes to run
  console.timeEnd("A label");
}

myMethod();

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If you want to know where is called your function then console.trace is your friend and will display the stack trace:

function children() {
console.trace('Optional message');
}
function parent() {
 children();
}

parent();

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