Are console.log/debug/warn/error in node.js asynchrounous? I mean will javascript code execution halt till the stuff is printed on screen or will it print at a later stage?
Also, I am interested in knowing if it is possible for a console.log to NOT display anything if the statement immediately after it crashes node.
Update: Starting with Node 0.6 this post is obsolete, since stdout is synchronous now.
Well let's see what console.log actually does.
First of all it's part of the console module:
exports.log = function() {
process.stdout.write(format.apply(this, arguments) + '\n');
};
So it simply does some formatting and writes to process.stdout, nothing asynchronous so far.
process.stdout is a getter defined on startup which is lazily initialized, I've added some comments to explain things:
.... code here...
process.__defineGetter__('stdout', function() {
if (stdout) return stdout; // only initialize it once
/// many requires here ...
if (binding.isatty(fd)) { // a terminal? great!
stdout = new tty.WriteStream(fd);
} else if (binding.isStdoutBlocking()) { // a file?
stdout = new fs.WriteStream(null, {fd: fd});
} else {
stdout = new net.Stream(fd); // a stream?
// For example: node foo.js > out.txt
stdout.readable = false;
}
return stdout;
});
In case of a TTY and UNIX we end up here, this thing inherits from socket. So all that node bascially does is to push the data on to the socket, then the terminal takes care of the rest.
Let's test it!
var data = '111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111';
for(var i = 0, l = 12; i < l; i++) {
data += data; // warning! gets very large, very quick
}
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