logging javascript object properties

Question

Please share your thoughts regarding below outputs.

var a = '';
console.log(a); //this logs nothing as expected.
a = 'triven';

var a = {};
console.log(a); // How javascript is aware of property here that is defined below. 
a.name = 'triven';

Answer 1

I think you're looking for console.dir().

console.log() doesn't do what you want because it prints a reference to the object, and by the time you pop it open, it's changed. console.dir prints a directory of the properties in the object at the time you call it.

The JSON idea below is a good one; you could even go on to parse the JSON string and get a browsable object like what .dir() would give you:

console.log(JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(obj)));