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 :(

Answer 1

Use javascript String() function.

 String(yourobject); //returns [object Object]

or

JSON.stringify(yourobject)

.

Answer 2

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>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]

Answer 3

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();

Answer 4

If you can use lodash you can do it this way:

> var o = {a:1, b:2};
> '{' + _.map(o, (value, key) => 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:

> _.map(o, (value, key) => key + ':' + value)
[ 'a:1', 'b:2' ]

And join() put the array entries together.

If you can use ES6 Template String, this works also:

> `{${_.map(o, (value, key) => `${key}:${value}`).join(', ')}}`
'{a:1, b:2}'

Please note this do not goes recursive through the Object:

> var o = {a:1, b:{c:2}}
> _.map(o, (value, key) => `${key}:${value}`)
[ 'a:1', 'b:[object Object]' ]

Like node's util.inspect() will do:

> util.inspect(o)
'{ a: 1, b: { c: 2 } }'

Answer 5

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(',')+'}';
}

Answer 6

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"]));