[object Object] in logs coming from routes?

[tomasikp]

Running 3.0alpha4

I am getting some interesting results in my logs out of express. Sometimes my routes will return [object Object] instead of the response code, i.e. 200.

No errors are thrown. However my client side app acts like it received no data. I haven't been able to isolate one of these calls on my client to see what it is receiving from the service call yet.

Any Ideas?

What it looks like:

GET /route 200 13ms
GET /route [object Object] 1ms
GET /route [object Object] 1ms
GET /route [object Object] 1ms
GET /route 200 7ms

[buschtoens]

Is there any way to reproduce this? Can you show us your code? Please use gist if the code is too long to be posted here.

[tj]

hmm weird I haven't seen this, what's your logger() config? logger('dev')?

[tomasikp]

 var app = express();

app.configure(function(){
  app.set('port', config.web.port);
  app.use(express.favicon());
  app.use(express.logger('dev'));
  app.use(express.bodyParser());
  app.use(db(config));
  app.use(account());
  app.use(express.methodOverride());
  app.use(app.router);
});

app.configure('development', function(){
  app.use(express.errorHandler());
});

[tj]

hmm yeah looks totally fine to me, how about npm ls

[tomasikp]

├── apn@1.1.7 
├─┬ aws2js@0.6.3 
│ ├── libxml-to-js@0.3.10 
│ ├── libxmljs@0.5.4 
│ └── mime-magic@0.2.6 
├── db-mysql@0.7.6 
├─┬ express@3.0.0alpha4 
│ ├── commander@0.5.2 
│ ├─┬ connect@2.2.2 
│ │ ├── crc@0.1.0 
│ │ ├── formidable@1.0.9 
│ │ ├── mime@1.2.4 
│ │ └── qs@0.4.2 
│ ├── crc@0.2.0 
│ ├── debug@0.7.0 
│ ├── mime@1.2.5 
│ └── mkdirp@0.3.1 
├── fluent-ffmpeg@0.1.1  extraneous
├── generic-pool@1.0.10 
├── imagemagick@0.1.2 
├─┬ jade@0.26.0  extraneous
│ ├── commander@0.5.2 
│ └── mkdirp@0.3.0 
├── moment@1.3.0 
├─┬ mongodb@1.0.2 
│ └── bson@0.0.6 
├─┬ multiparter@0.1.4 
│ ├── async@0.1.15 
│ └── underscore@1.2.1 
└── tmp@0.0.12 

[tj]

hmm wtff

[tomasikp]

have any suggestions on what object i could console.dir before requests are returned so that we can see what [object Object] might be?

[tj]

i'd just step through the logger() middleware in connect with the debugger, i cant reproduce it

[tomasikp]

got this to print out in chrome when i stopped the node process on an [object Object] call.

HTTP/1.1 [object Object] unknownX-Powered-By: Express
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 3
Connection: keep-alive

401

[tomasikp]

I found the problem, I have a function that is called on every call to the server to check if the user's access_token is authorized. If not I call this:

 res.json({
 'message': 'Unauthorized'
 },401); 

this is what was coming back as [object Object] in the logs.

I console logged the following block in connect/middleware/logger.js:

exports.format('dev', function(tokens, req, res){
  var status = res.statusCode
    , color = 32;

  if (status >= 500) color = 31
  else if (status >= 400) color = 33
  else if (status >= 300) color = 36;
console.dir(status);
  return '\033[90m' + req.method
    + ' ' + req.originalUrl + ' '
    + '\033[' + color + 'm' + res.statusCode
    + ' \033[90m'
    + (new Date - req._startTime)
    + 'ms\033[0m';
});

Tested it with a route that I made:

 server.get('/status', function(req, res) {
      res.json({
          'message': 'API for user statuses'
                  },401);
});

as it appeared in console:

{ message: 'API for user statuses' }
GET /status [object Object] 2ms

And again with an example from http://expressjs.com/guide.html

  server.get('/status', function(req, res) {

res.json('I dont have that', 404);
                });

as it appeared in console:

'I dont have that'
GET /status I dont have that 9ms

---

Made a test project with express 2.5.8 using the binary to create an express project, added the connect middleware logger, and the res.json function worked as expected

GET /status 401 1ms

---

In master:

express/lib/response.js:146

[tomasikp]

worked on 3.0 reversing the params:

res.json(404,'I dont have that');

GET /status 404 6ms

#1028 prob shouldn't have been closed. I'm guessing that you guys decided to reverse the params to res.json in 3.x?

[tj]

ohh yes sorry i didn't think of that off hand. It's an annoying change I know, but I think it helps show the intent of the response better first, and switching it back in the alpha would probably be even more annoying for people who have started migrating. maybe we could throw a console.warn in there

[tomasikp]

I think that would be great for people that are upgrading from 2.x -> 3.x

[tj]

BC was added