Missing console.dump on ios...

[enchev]

From @NathanaelA on September 19, 2015 8:6

I copied some code over from Android to ios; and found out the console.dump doesn't work. Shouldn't we take the same dump routine that is available on the ios and patch the console prototype to use it?

Copied from original issue: NativeScript/NativeScript#778

[jasssonpet]

console.dump() isn't implemented in any of the following popular APIs:

• Node.js console
• Chrome console
• Firefox console
• IE console
• Safari console
• Opera console

IMO, if we want to support it on iOS, the same as we do on Android, we have to add the same implementation from the modules in the runtime, which is suboptimal and error-prone. I think, that the dump method (and any other custom one) should be added in the NativeScript modules, so that it can work the same on iOS and Android.

IMO, instead of modifying internal JavaScript objects we should replace the console.dump(obj) method with console.log(f(obj)), where f is something like util.inspect() in node.

Related to: #261

[enchev]

This issue was moved to NativeScript/NativeScript#805

[fealebenpae]

@jasssonpet we should use console.dir(), which is supported by the Inspector.

[jasssonpet]

@fealebenpae console.dir() is an excellent method, but as said in the previous discussion, it doesn't work without the inspector. Sometimes you just want to use the terminal, and something like console.dump() would be invaluable.

[fealebenpae]

@jasssonpet We can override the current ConsoleClient and implement stdout logging for dir, table, and some other methods. I'm willing to bet that util.inspect() in Node came about because of a limitation in the way v8 handles console.

[jasssonpet]

I totally agree with this if we can, and we can change console.dir() for Android too to be on par with iOS.

But I think, that it would still be useful to have something like util.inspect() for dumping to a file or alert call.

BTW, node's console.dir() does pretty print objects on the terminal.