Converting an object to a string

Question

How can I convert a JavaScript object into a string   Example   var o    a 1  b 2  console log o  console log  Item      o    Output      Object   a 1  b 2     very nice readable output      Item   object Object     no idea what s inside

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If you re just outputting to the console  you can use console log  string    obj   Notice the comma

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function objToString  obj        var str            if typeof obj   object                    for  var p in obj              if  obj hasOwnProperty p                   str    p         objToString  obj p                                          else                  if typeof obj   string                           return     obj                            else                         return obj                                return str substring 0 str length-1

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I would recommend using JSON stringify  which converts the set of the variables in the object to a JSON string  Most modern browsers support this method natively  but for those that don t  you can include a JS version    var obj       name   myObj      JSON stringify obj

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I was looking for this  and wrote a deep recursive one with indentation    function objToString obj  ndeep      if obj    null   return String obj       switch typeof obj       case  string   return     obj          case  function   return obj name    obj toString        case  object         var indent   Array ndeep  1  join   t    isArray   Array isArray obj         return       isArray    Object keys obj  map function key              return   n t    indent   key          objToString obj key    ndeep  1  1               join          n    indent         isArray       default  return obj toString            Usage   objToString   a  1  b    c   test

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Take a look at the jQuery-JSON plugin  At its core  it uses JSON stringify but falls back to its own parser if the browser doesn t implement it

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As firefox does not stringify some object as screen object   if you want to have the same result such as   JSON stringify obj      function objToString  obj        var tabjson         for  var p in obj            if  obj hasOwnProperty p                 tabjson push     p             obj p                     tabjson push       return     tabjson join

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var obj   name  xyz   Address  123  Somestreet     var convertedString JSON stringify obj    console log  literal object is  obj  typeof obj    console log  converted string    convertedString    console log   convertedString type   typeof convertedString

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If you can use lodash you can do it this way    gt  var o    a 1  b 2    gt          map o   value  key    gt  key         value  join               a 1  b 2     With lodash map   you can iterate over Objects as well  This maps every key value entry to its string representation    gt    map o   value  key    gt  key         value     a 1    b 2      And join   put the array entries together   If you can use ES6 Template String  this works also    gt        map o   value  key    gt     key    value    join            a 1  b 2     Please note this do not goes recursive through the Object    gt  var o    a 1  b  c 2    gt    map o   value  key    gt     key    value       a 1    b  object Object       Like node s util inspect   will do    gt  util inspect o     a  1  b    c  2

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If you just want to see the object for debugging  you can use  var o    a 1  b 2   console dir o

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For non-nested objects   Object entries o  map x  gt x join       join   r n

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If you are using the Dojo javascript framework then there is already a build in function to do this  dojo toJson   which would be used like so    var obj       name   myObj     dojo toJson obj     which will return a string  If you want to convert the object to json data then add a second parameter of true   dojo toJson obj  true     http   dojotoolkit org reference-guide dojo toJson html dojo-tojson

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add on --- JSON stringify obj  is nice  but it will convert to json string object  sometimes we will need the string of it  like when posting it in body for WCF http post and recieving as a string  in order of this we should reuse the stringify   as following  let obj    id 1  name  cherry    let jsonObj   JSON stringify doc     json object string let strObj   JSON stringify jsonObj     json object string wrapped with string

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There is actually one easy option  for recent browsers and Node js  missing in the existing answers   console log  Item   o   o     I would prefer this as JSON stringify   has certain limitations  e g  with circular structures

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If you want a minimalist method of converting a variable to a string for an inline expression type situation     variablename is the best I have golfed   If  variablename  is an object and you use the empty string concatenation operation  it will give the annoying  object Object   in which case you probably want Gary C  s enormously upvoted JSON stringify answer to the posted question  which you can read about on Mozilla s Developer Network at the link in that answer at the top

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One option   console log  Item      JSON stringify o       Another option  as soktinpk pointed out in the comments   and better for console debugging IMO   console log  Item     o

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None of the solutions here worked for me  JSON stringify seems to be what a lot of people say  but it cuts out functions and seems pretty broken for some objects and arrays I tried when testing it   I made my own solution which works in Chrome at least  Posting it here so anyone that looks this up on Google can find it     Make an object a string that evaluates to an equivalent object     Note that eval   seems tricky and sometimes you have to do     something like eval  a       yourString   then use the value     of a         Also this leaves extra commas after everything  but JavaScript     ignores them  function convertToText obj          create an array that will later be joined into a string      var string              is object           Both arrays and objects seem to return  object            when typeof obj  is applied to them  So instead           I am checking to see if they have the property           join  which normal objects don t have but           arrays do      if  typeof obj      object   amp  amp   obj join    undefined             string push               for  prop in obj                string push prop        convertToText obj prop                             string push              is array       else if  typeof obj      object   amp  amp    obj join    undefined             string push              for prop in obj                string push convertToText obj prop                            string push             is function       else if  typeof obj      function             string push obj toString           all other values can be done with JSON stringify       else           string push JSON stringify obj              return string join         EDIT  I know this code can be improved but just never got around to doing it  User andrey suggested an improvement here with the comment      Here is a little bit changed code  which can handle  null  and  undefined   and also do not add excessive commas    Use that at your own risk as I haven t verified it at all  Feel free to suggest any additional improvements as a comment

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For your example  I think console log  Item   o  would be easiest  But  console log  Item     o toString  would also work   Using method number one uses a nice dropdown in the console  so a long object would work nicely

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I hope this example will help for all those who all are working on array of objects  var data array                           id    0                        store    ABC                                           id   1                        store   XYZ                      console log String data array 1   id   data array 1   store

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If you wont aplay join   to Object   const obj    one 1  two 2  three 3   let arr       for let p in obj      arr push obj p    const str   arr join

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This function is as JSON Stringify  but if you has not in your js-engine you can use this      Params          obj - your object         inc ident - can be     or   t           show types - show types of object or not         ident - need for recoursion but you can not set this parameter     function getAsText obj  inc ident  show types  ident        var res           if   ident          ident           if  typeof obj      string             res           obj                  res     show types    true        typeobj      typeof obj                     else if  typeof obj      number     typeof obj      boolean             res    obj          res     show types    true        typeobj      typeof obj                     else if  obj instanceof Array            res                  res    show types       typeobj      typeof obj                       res      r n           var new ident   ident   inc ident          var arr               for var key in obj                arr push new ident   getAsText obj key   inc ident  show types  new ident                       res    arr join    r n       r n           res    ident              else           var new ident   ident   inc ident                res                  res     show types    true        typeobj      typeof obj                       res      r n           var arr               for var key in obj                arr push new ident         key             getAsText obj key   inc ident  show types  new ident                      res    arr join    r n       r n           res    ident      r n              return res       example to use   var obj         str    hello       arr     1    2    3   4   b   true      vobj             str    hello2           var ForReading   1  ForWriting   2  var fso   new ActiveXObject  Scripting FileSystemObject   f1   fso OpenTextFile  your object1 txt   ForWriting  true  f1 Write getAsText obj    t     f1 Close     f2   fso OpenTextFile  your object2 txt   ForWriting  true  f2 Write getAsText obj    t   true    f2 Close      your object1 txt           str     hello         arr                1             2             3            4             b    true       vobj                str     hello2              your object2 txt        typeobj  object        str     hello     typeobj  string         arr         typeobj  object            1     typeobj  string             2     typeobj  string             3     typeobj  string            4   typeobj  number               b    true   typeobj  boolean         vobj         typeobj  object            str     hello2     typeobj  string

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In cases where you know the object is just a Boolean  Date  String  number etc    The javascript String   function works just fine  I recently found this useful in dealing with values coming from jquery s   each function   For example the following would convert all items in  value  to a string     each this  function  name  value      alert String value          More details here   http   www w3schools com jsref jsref string asp

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setobjToString function obj           var me  this          obj obj 0           var tabjson             for  var p in obj                if  obj hasOwnProperty p                     if  obj p  instanceof Array                       tabjson push     p             me setobjToString obj p                      else                      tabjson push     p           obj p                                                   tabjson push           return     tabjson join

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Keeping it simple with console  you can just use a comma instead of a    The   will try to convert the object into a string  whereas the comma will display it separately in the console   Example   var o    a 1  b 2   console log o   console log  Item      o   console log  Item     o             Output   Object   a 1  b 2               useful Item   object Object            not useful Item   Object  a  1  b  2       Best of both worlds       Reference  https   developer mozilla org en-US docs Web API Console log

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maybe you are looking for  JSON stringify JSON stringify obj      quot    quot id  quot  30  quot

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stringify-object is a good npm library made by the yeoman team  https   www npmjs com package stringify-object  npm install stringify-object   then    const stringifyObject   require  stringify-object    stringifyObject myCircularObject     Obviously it s interesting only if you have circular object that would fail with JSON stringify

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Use javascript String   function   String yourobject     returns  object Object    or stringify    JSON stringify yourobject

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Sure  to convert an object into a string  you either have to use your own method  such as   function objToString  obj        var str           for  var p in obj            if  obj hasOwnProperty p                 str    p          obj p      n                       return str      Actually  the above just shows the general approach  you may wish to use something like http   phpjs org functions var export 578 or http   phpjs org functions var dump 604  or  if you are not using methods  functions as properties of your object   you may be able to use the new standard  but not implemented in older browsers  though you can find a utility to help with it for them too   JSON stringify    But again  that won t work if the object uses functions or other properties which aren t serializable to JSON

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JSON methods are quite inferior to the Gecko engine  toSource   primitive   See the SO article response for comparison tests   Also  the answer above refers to http   forums devshed com javascript-development-115 tosource-with-arrays-in-ie-386109 html which  like JSON   which the other article http   www davidpirek com blog object-to-string-how-to-deserialize-json uses via  ExtJs JSON encode source code   cannot handle circular references and is incomplete  The code below shows it s  spoof s  limitations  corrected to handle arrays and objects without content     direct link to code in   forums devshed com       tosource-with-arrays-in-ie-386109   javascript  Object prototype spoof function        if  this instanceof String         return   new String    this replace    g                          var str  this instanceof Array                           this instanceof Object                                           for  var i in this         if  this i     Object prototype spoof            if  this instanceof Array    false              str   i match   W                        i replace                                  i                        if  typeof this i      string              str      this i  replace                                else if  this i  instanceof Date             str   new Date    this i  toGMTString                           else if  this i  instanceof Array    this i  instanceof Object             str  this i  spoof                      else             str  this i                     str                           str    fix    str length gt 2 str substring 0  str length-2  str    -ed               this instanceof Array                           this instanceof Object                                                 return str       for i in objRA            Simple Raw Object source code              new Array  new Object  new Boolean  new Number                   new String  new RegExp  new Function  new Date                   Literal Instances source code                       true  1           function      new Date                       some predefined entities              JSON  Math  null  Infinity  NaN                   void 0   Function  Array  Object  undefined                 alert         n n ntesting   objRA i  0  objRA i  1         n toSource     obj eval objRA i  1    toSource          ntoSource   spoof   obj spoof     join   n       which displays   testing  Simple Raw Object source code   new Array  new Object  new Boolean  new Number  new String            new RegExp  new Function  new Date    toSource             new Boolean false     new Number 0     new String                          function anonymous         new Date 1303248037722     toSource   spoof                    new String                         new Date  Tue  19 Apr 2011 21 20 37 GMT      and  testing  Literal Instances source code            true  1           function      new Date       toSource            true  1            function          new Date 1303248055778     toSource   spoof           true  1             new Date  Tue  19 Apr 2011 21 20 55 GMT      and  testing  some predefined entities   JSON  Math  null  Infinity  NaN  void 0   Function  Array  Object  undefined    toSource    JSON  Math  null  Infinity  NaN   void 0          function Function     native code    function Array     native code                  function Object     native code     void 0    toSource   spoof           null  Infinity  NaN  undefined              undefined

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If all you want is to simply get a string output  then this should work  String object

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If you only care about strings  objects  and arrays   function objectToString  obj            var str               var i 0          for  var key in obj                if  obj hasOwnProperty key                     if typeof obj key      object                                         if obj key  instanceof Array                                                str   key                                    for var j 0 j lt obj key  length j                                                          if typeof obj key  j    object                                     str          objectToString obj key  j      j  gt  0                                                                              else                                                               str           obj key  j            j  gt  0                non objects would be represented as strings                                                                                 str          i  gt  0                                                       else                                               str    key             objectToString obj key             i  gt  0                                                                      else                       str   key           obj key            i  gt  0                                                i                                    return str

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EDIT  Do not use this answer as it works only in some versions of Firefox  No other browsers support it  Use Gary Chambers solution  toSource   is the function you are looking for which will write it out as JSON  var object       object first    quot test quot   object second    quot test2 quot   alert object toSource

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It appears JSON accept the second parameter that could help with functions - replacer  this solves the issue of converting in the most elegant way    JSON stringify object   key  val    gt        if  typeof val      function           return String val             return val

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Circular References By using below replacer we can produce less redundant JSON - if source object contains multi-references to some object  or contains circular references - then we reference it by special path-string  similar to JSONPath  - we use it as follows let s   JSON stringify obj  refReplacer       x000D   x000D  function refReplacer       let m   new Map    v  new Map    init   null     return function field  value        let p  m get this     Array isArray this        field            field        let isComplex  value   Object value           if  isComplex  m set value  p              let pp   v get value           let path   p replace  undefined                let val   pp     REF   pp 0                    pp     value            init    init value     val   init   val   REF      0       if  pp  amp  amp  isComplex  v set value  path           return val               ---------------    TEST    ---------------     gen obj with duplicate references let a     a1  1  a2  2    let b     b1  3  b2   4     let obj     o1    o2   a     b  a       duplicate reference a a3    1 2 b                           circular reference b b3   a                                circular reference   let s   JSON stringify obj  refReplacer    4    console log s   x000D   x000D   x000D   BONUS  and here is inverse function of such serialisation  x000D   x000D  function parseRefJSON json      let objToPath   new Map      let pathToObj   new Map      let o   JSON parse json        let traverse    parent  field    gt        let obj   parent      let path     REF          if  field     undefined          obj   parent field         path   objToPath get parent     Array isArray parent        field         field     field                   objToPath set obj  path       pathToObj set path  obj            let ref   pathToObj get obj       if  ref  parent field    ref       for  let f in obj  if  obj     Object obj   traverse obj  f            traverse o     return o          ------------    TEST    ------------  let s           o1              o2                  a1   1               a2   2               a3                     1                  2                                         b1   3                       b2    4                        b3     REF   o1 o2                                                        b     REF   o1 o2 a3 2         a     REF   o1 o2       console log  Open Chrome console to see nested fields     let obj   parseRefJSON s    console log obj   x000D   x000D   x000D

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1   JSON stringify o        Item    a   1    b   2     2   var o    a 1  b 2   var b     Object keys o  forEach function k  b push k     o k       b     b join            console log  Item      b        Item   a 1  b 2

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var o    a 1  b 2    o toString function      return  a   this a    b   this b      console log o   console log  Item      o     Since Javascript v1 0 works everywhere  even IE  this is a native approach and allows for a very costomised look of your object while debugging and in production https   developer mozilla org en docs Web JavaScript Reference Global Objects Object toString  Usefull example  var Ship function n x y     this name   n    this x   x    this y   y     Ship prototype toString function      return     this name    located at  x   this x   y   this y      alert  new Ship  Star Destroyer   50 001  53 201   new Ship  Millennium Falcon   123 987  287 543   new Ship  TIE fighter   83 060  102 523   join   n      now they can battle     Star Destroyer  located at  x 50 001 y 53 201    Millennium Falcon  located at  x 123 987 y 287 543    TIE fighter  located at  x 83 06 y 102 523   Also  as a bonus  function ISO8601Date      return this getFullYear    -   this getMonth   1   -  this getDate      var d new Date    d toString ISO8601Date   demonstrates altering native object behaviour alert d     IE6   Fri Jul 29 04 21 26 UTC 1200 2016   FF amp GC Fri Jul 29 2016 04 21 26 GMT 1200  New Zealand Standard Time    d toString ISO8601Date  2016-7-29

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I had need to make a more configurable version of JSON stringify as I had to add comments and know the JSON path    x000D   x000D  const someObj     x000D    a    x000D      nested    x000D        value   apple   x000D         x000D      sibling   peanut  x000D       x000D    b    x000D      languages    en    de    fr    x000D      c    x000D        nice   heh  x000D        x000D       x000D    c   butter   x000D    d  function       x000D     x000D   x000D  function  objIter obj  indent         depth   0  path         x000D    const t   indent repeat depth   x000D    const t1   indent repeat depth   1   x000D    const v   v   gt  JSON stringify v   x000D    yield   type  Array isArray obj     OPEN ARR     OPEN OBJ   indent  depth    x000D    const keys   Object keys obj   x000D     x000D    for  let i   0  l   keys length  i  lt  l  i      x000D      const key   keys i   x000D      const prop   obj key   x000D      const nextPath    path  amp  amp  key       path    key    x000D    x000D      if  typeof prop      object     x000D        yield   type   isNaN key     VAL     ARR VAL   key  prop  indent  depth  path  nextPath    x000D        else   x000D        yield   type   OBJ KEY   key  indent  depth  path  nextPath    x000D        yield  objIter prop  indent  depth   1  nextPath   x000D        x000D      x000D   x000D    yield   type  Array isArray obj     CLOSE ARR     CLOSE OBJ   indent  depth    x000D    x000D   x000D  const iterMap    it  mapFn    gt    x000D    const arr       x000D    for  const x of it    arr push mapFn x     x000D    return arr  x000D    x000D   x000D  const objToStr   obj   gt  iterMap objIter obj      type  key  prop  indent  depth  path      gt    x000D    const t   indent repeat depth   x000D    const t1   indent repeat depth   1   x000D    const v   v   gt  JSON stringify v   x000D   x000D    switch  type    x000D      case  OPEN ARR   x000D        return    n   x000D      case  OPEN OBJ   x000D        return    n   x000D      case  VAL   x000D        return    t1      path  n  t1   v key      v prop    n   x000D      case  ARR VAL   x000D        return    t1      path  n  t1   v prop    n   x000D      case  OBJ KEY   x000D        return    t1      path  n  t1   v key       x000D      case  CLOSE ARR   x000D      case  CLOSE OBJ   x000D        return    t   type      CLOSE ARR                depth              n   x000D      default  x000D        throw new Error  Unknown type    type   x000D      x000D     join      x000D   x000D  const s   objToStr someObj   x000D  console log s   x000D   x000D   x000D

[javascript] Converting an object to a string

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