Node.js formatted console output

Question

Is there a simple built-in way to output formatted data to console in Node.js?

Indent, align field to left or right, add leading zeros?

Answer 1

Two new(1) built in methods String.Prototype.padStart and String.Prototype.padEnd were introduced in ES2017 (ES8) which perform the required padding functions.

(1) node >= 8.2.1 (or >= 7.5.0 if run with the --harmony flag)

Examples from the mdn page:

'abc'.padStart(10);         // "       abc" 'abc'.padStart(10, "foo");  // "foofoofabc" 'abc'.padStart(6,"123465"); // "123abc" 'abc'.padStart(8, "0");     // "00000abc" 'abc'.padStart(1);          // "abc"   'abc'.padEnd(10);          // "abc       " 'abc'.padEnd(10, "foo");   // "abcfoofoof" 'abc'.padEnd(6, "123456"); // "abc123" 'abc'.padEnd(1);           // "abc" 

For indenting a json onto the console try using JSON.stringify. The third parameter provides the indention required.

JSON.stringify({ a:1, b:2, c:3 }, null, 4); // { //    "a": 1, //    "b": 2, //    "c": 3 // }