Skip to content
New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

doc: note about custom inspect functions #2142

Closed
wants to merge 6 commits into from
Closed

doc: note about custom inspect functions #2142

Changes from 5 commits
Commits
Show all changes
6 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
b08202a
doc: note about custom inspect functions
thefourtheye Jul 9, 2015
95e47e8
Addressing review comments
thefourtheye Jul 17, 2015
a631a66
Incorporating cjihrig's comments
thefourtheye Jul 22, 2015
19a80c2
fix
thefourtheye Jul 22, 2015
b2e6394
Fixing links
thefourtheye Jul 22, 2015
6839e19
Incorporating Fishrock's comments
thefourtheye Jul 23, 2015
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
24 changes: 24 additions & 0 deletions doc/api/repl.markdown
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -237,3 +237,27 @@ The following key combinations in the REPL have these special effects:
- `<ctrl>D` - Similar to the `.exit` keyword.
- `<tab>` - Show both global and local(scope) variables


### Customizing Object displays in the REPL

The REPL module internally uses
[util.inspect()][], when printing values. But, `util.inspect` delegates the call
Copy link
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I'd recommend using However instead of But here. It's slightly more formal english.

to the object's `inspect` function, if it has one. You can read more about
this delegation [here][].

If you have defined an `inspect` function on an object, like this:
Copy link
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Should this be referred to as inspect()? I wish we had guidelines for that kind of thing... cc @nodejs/documentation


> var obj = { foo: 'this will not show up in the inspect() output' };
undefined
> obj.inspect = function() {
... return { bar: 'baz' };
... };
[Function]

and try to print `obj` in REPL, it will invoke the custom `inspect` function:
Copy link
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I think either a period or colon should be fine here. I originally said period because your sentence was coming to a finish, but you also have a following code block, so either should be fine.

Copy link
Contributor Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Cool, thanks :-)


> obj
{ bar: 'baz' }

[util.inspect()]: util.html#util_util_inspect_object_options
[here]: util.html#util_custom_inspect_function_on_objects