What is the JavaScript Equivalent of PHP print_r() function? In other words, how you can “print” a javascript object in a way that’s readable by humans?
Code
You could use JSON.stringify, as following:
The HTML part
Let’s create two links for demo:
<p><a id="print_demo" href="javascript:void(0);">Print object</a></p>
<p><a id="pretty_print_demo" href="javascript:void(0);">Pretty Print object</a>
The JAVASCRIPT part
Remark: I use jQuery to handle events, but you can use plain javascript (if you prefer).
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
// create an object
var person = new Object();
person.firstname = "John";
person.lastname = "Doe";
person.age = "35";
// plain print
$("#print_demo").click(function() {
alert(JSON.stringify(person));
});
// pretty print
$("#pretty_print_demo").click(function() {
alert(JSON.stringify(person, null, ' '));
});
});
</script>
About Internet Explorer
JSON will not work (by default) on Microsoft Internet Explorer ⤠9. For a cross browser implementation, get json2.js from https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js and use the following code:
<!--[if lt IE 10]>
<script type="text/javascript" src="json2.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
Another alternative is json3 from https://github.com/bestiejs/json3.
References
From JSON docs
From Mozilla docs
Entrepreneur | Full-stack developer | Founder of MediSign Ltd. I have over 15 years of professional experience designing and developing web applications. I am also very experienced in managing (web) projects.
