> I might be off here, but I imagine console.log early exits if there's no console open, so it doesn't call toString

The point is to avoid calling toString when the console is open, by using some other way of displaying logged values.

I'm saying you can't avoid calling toString.

Their code will call console.log(object) every X ticks.

As soon as you open the console, console.log fires instead of early exiting => object.toString is called => they know the console is open

Well… you can on a lot of things. We never did .toString() on a whole lot. However, I was big on .displayName (as an override on .name which is found on functions)

My memory is fuzzy, but I also had a different function I would call if frameworks added it so instead of “Object {}” it was “Backbone.Model {id=1}”.

I put these in and used them in firebug extensions I wrote for frameworks.

Later I asked chrome to add something, which is why there is a “enable custom formatters” option for the console. Really needs to work in the debugger though.

Do you not understand that it's not your code and that their code wants toString to be called?

Someone else is writing code that they want to have react to the console opening.

So they will intentionally force the call as soon as the console is open, as a result toString is called regardless of if you yourself have made a call to it.

> console.log fires instead of early exiting => object.toString

The point is that you patch the console to not do that.

How does "JSON.stringify(object)" patch the console not to do that without first opening the console?