JavaScript Debugging Tips: Console.table()

Is console.log The Only Option?

Like me, many of you probably use console.log() to debug your JavaScript code a lot of the time. The problem isn’t big enough to require the setting of breakpoints but you don’t want something intrusive like alert().

Console.log() is great for that. But is it always the best solution?

Let’s Put Everything On The Table

Some of you may already know about console.log()’s lesser known brother, console.table(). Although, I would take a guess that many of you have never heard of it. I certainly hadn’t heard of it until relatively recently.

I don’t really know why it is such an obscure thing because it is extremely useful.

Console.log Debugging Or Console.table()?

So this will just be a quick one today. As you may already know, or have already guessed, console.table allows you to print out arrays and objects to the console.

This is great because it’s well organised, unlike the standard dropdowns we get for objects when we console.log them. On top of that you can also sort columns to quickly see exactly what you need to.

Let’s create ourselves an array to practice with:

var turtles = [
    {
        name: "bob",
        type: "loggerhead"
    },
    {
        name: "sally",
        type: "leatherback"
    },
    {
        name: "amanda",
        type: "green"
    }
];

So here we have a happy group of turtles that we can print out in our table.

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