I’ll start with the code:
var s = ["hi"];
console.log(s);
s[0] = "bye";
console.log(s);
Simple, right? In response to this, the Firefox console says:
[ "hi" ]
[ "bye" ]
Wonderful, but Chrome’s JavaScript console (7.0.517.41 beta) says:
[ "bye" ]
[ "bye" ]
Have I done something wrong, or is Chrome’s JavaScript console being exceptionally lazy about evaluating my array?
You can clone an array with Array#slice:
console.log(s); // ["bye"], i.e. incorrect
console.log(s.slice()); // ["hi"], i.e. correct
A function that you can use instead of console.log that doesn't have this problem is as follows:
console.logShallowCopy = function () {
function slicedIfArray(arg) {
return Array.isArray(arg) ? arg.slice() : arg;
}
var argsSnapshot = Array.prototype.map.call(arguments, slicedIfArray);
return console.log.apply(console, argsSnapshot);
};
For the case of objects, unfortunately, the best method appears to be to debug first with a non-WebKit browser, or to write a complicated function to clone. If you are only working with simple objects, where order of keys doesn't matter and there are no functions, you could always do:
console.logSanitizedCopy = function () {
var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);
var sanitizedArgs = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(args));
return console.log.apply(console, sanitizedArgs);
};
All of these methods are obviously very slow, so even more so than with normal console.logs, you have to strip them off after you're done debugging.