[Bug]: defaultMeta returns object not string

[renanyoy]

🔎 Search Terms

defaultmeta

The problem

defaultMeta does't appears as string in the log

const logger = winston.createLogger({
    level: 'info',
    format: production ? ecsFormat({ convertReqRes: true }) : winston.format.simple(),
    defaultMeta: { service: 'account' },
    transports: [new winston.transports.Console()]
});

but it displays service like that in the log

{
    "service":
    {
        "0": "a",
        "1": "c",
        "2": "c",
        "3": "o",
        "4": "u",
        "5": "n",
        "6": "t"
    }
}

What version of Winston presents the issue?

v3.3.3

What version of Node are you using?

v16.15.0

If this worked in a previous version of Winston, which was it?

No response

Minimum Working Example

const logger = winston.createLogger({
    level: 'info',
    format: production ? ecsFormat({ convertReqRes: true }) : winston.format.simple(),
    defaultMeta: { service: 'account' },
    transports: [new winston.transports.Console()]
});

Additional information

No response

[wbt]

Out of curiosity, does this work in v3.7.0 and does it work in the latest version? Thanks to @maverick1872, 3.7.0 had a bunch of changes that might address this, but those changes were fairly quickly reverted due to an apparent bug.

[maverick1872]

Whew. I've been out of the loop (life is a roller coaster) and haven't had time to come back around to this. I'm off Friday so I'll spend sometime fixing the underlying issue in #1989 in regards to Error Objects.

@renanyoy if you don't mind testing this in the latest version to confirm it's still present that would be appreciated!

[renanyoy]

@maverick1872 I have upgraded to winston 3.7.2 and it's same

[wbt]

Seeing also if it works in 3.7.0 specifically helps figure out if that set of changes also addresses this problem.

[nTony46]

Me and other students can work on this issue.

[wbt]

Thanks! Please first try to see if you can reproduce as described in the latest version, and then try 3.7.0 specifically, and report on whether that helps!

[nTony46]

Yes, we were able to reproduce the issue on 3.8.2 and on 3.7.2 (couldn't npm install 3.7.0). I think that the issue @renanyoy had comes from the formatting when ‘production’ is true, which invokes the ecsFormat.

According to this ECS doc, the ‘service’ should be set as an object instead of a string, to something like defaultMeta: { service: {name:'account'}}.

A potential solution could just be reinitializing defaultMeta to defaultMeta: production ? {service: {name: 'account'}} : {service: 'account'}. We are thinking of making an input formatter so that both scenarios of declaring as a string or object would work and not cause the issue. Any thoughts?

[wbt]

What error did you encounter trying to install 3.7.0?
Also maybe try 3.7.1.

[nTony46]

I ran npm install winston@3.7.0 and was met with:

npm ERR! code ETARGET
npm ERR! notarget No matching version found for winston@3.7.0.
npm ERR! notarget In most cases you or one of your dependencies are requesting
npm ERR! notarget a package version that doesn't exist.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /home/codespace/.npm/_logs/2022-11-15T20_21_20_687Z-debug-0.log

Here is what was inside the log: https://pastebin.com/u8NNmjrb

I also ran npm install winston@3.7.1 which worked and I was able to reproduce the same issue.

[wbt]

Hmm, OK, thanks for the report. It's disappointing that 3.7.1 didn't solve it.