Design A Javascript Object To Output To Console.log As A String As Per New Date()

How is it that console.log(new Date()); shows a string at the console? How do I imitate that behaviour in my objects?

Solution 1:

Provide a .toString() method in your object's prototype:

varDemo = function(){};
Demo.prototype.toString = function(){ return"Demo string"; };

var test = newDemo();
console.log(test); // results in "Demo string"

Note that this could slightly alter the behaviour of your code, since the non-type safe comparison operator == will use this function in some circumstances if the left and right hand side are not of the same type:

if(test == "Demo String"){
    console.log("Equal!");
}
if(test !== "Demo String"){
    console.log("But not same type!");
}

However, it seems that console.loghasn't been standardized yet, so there is no uniform solution. Note that you can still use console.log(test + "") to trigger the call of toString.