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5 <img width="647" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29091486-fa38524c-7c37-11e7-895f-e7ec8e1039b6.png">
7 A tiny JavaScript debugging utility modelled after Node.js core's debugging
8 technique. Works in Node.js and web browsers.
18 `debug` exposes a function; simply pass this function the name of your module, and it will return a decorated version of `console.error` for you to pass debug statements to. This will allow you to toggle the debug output for different parts of your module as well as the module as a whole.
20 Example [_app.js_](./examples/node/app.js):
23 var debug = require('debug')('http')
24 , http = require('http')
29 debug('booting %o', name);
31 http.createServer(function(req, res){
32 debug(req.method + ' ' + req.url);
34 }).listen(3000, function(){
38 // fake worker of some kind
43 Example [_worker.js_](./examples/node/worker.js):
46 var a = require('debug')('worker:a')
47 , b = require('debug')('worker:b');
50 a('doing lots of uninteresting work');
51 setTimeout(work, Math.random() * 1000);
58 setTimeout(workb, Math.random() * 2000);
64 The `DEBUG` environment variable is then used to enable these based on space or
65 comma-delimited names.
67 Here are some examples:
69 <img width="647" alt="screen shot 2017-08-08 at 12 53 04 pm" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29091703-a6302cdc-7c38-11e7-8304-7c0b3bc600cd.png">
70 <img width="647" alt="screen shot 2017-08-08 at 12 53 38 pm" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29091700-a62a6888-7c38-11e7-800b-db911291ca2b.png">
71 <img width="647" alt="screen shot 2017-08-08 at 12 53 25 pm" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29091701-a62ea114-7c38-11e7-826a-2692bedca740.png">
75 On Windows the environment variable is set using the `set` command.
81 Note that PowerShell uses different syntax to set environment variables.
84 $env:DEBUG = "*,-not_this"
87 Then, run the program to be debugged as usual.
92 Every debug instance has a color generated for it based on its namespace name.
93 This helps when visually parsing the debug output to identify which debug instance
94 a debug line belongs to.
98 In Node.js, colors are enabled when stderr is a TTY. You also _should_ install
99 the [`supports-color`](https://npmjs.org/supports-color) module alongside debug,
100 otherwise debug will only use a small handful of basic colors.
102 <img width="521" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29092181-47f6a9e6-7c3a-11e7-9a14-1928d8a711cd.png">
106 Colors are also enabled on "Web Inspectors" that understand the `%c` formatting
107 option. These are WebKit web inspectors, Firefox ([since version
108 31](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/editable-box-model-multiple-selection-sublime-text-keys-much-more-firefox-developer-tools-episode-31/))
109 and the Firebug plugin for Firefox (any version).
111 <img width="524" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29092033-b65f9f2e-7c39-11e7-8e32-f6f0d8e865c1.png">
116 When actively developing an application it can be useful to see when the time spent between one `debug()` call and the next. Suppose for example you invoke `debug()` before requesting a resource, and after as well, the "+NNNms" will show you how much time was spent between calls.
118 <img width="647" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29091486-fa38524c-7c37-11e7-895f-e7ec8e1039b6.png">
120 When stdout is not a TTY, `Date#toISOString()` is used, making it more useful for logging the debug information as shown below:
122 <img width="647" src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/71256/29091956-6bd78372-7c39-11e7-8c55-c948396d6edd.png">
127 If you're using this in one or more of your libraries, you _should_ use the name of your library so that developers may toggle debugging as desired without guessing names. If you have more than one debuggers you _should_ prefix them with your library name and use ":" to separate features. For example "bodyParser" from Connect would then be "connect:bodyParser". If you append a "*" to the end of your name, it will always be enabled regardless of the setting of the DEBUG environment variable. You can then use it for normal output as well as debug output.
131 The `*` character may be used as a wildcard. Suppose for example your library has
132 debuggers named "connect:bodyParser", "connect:compress", "connect:session",
133 instead of listing all three with
134 `DEBUG=connect:bodyParser,connect:compress,connect:session`, you may simply do
135 `DEBUG=connect:*`, or to run everything using this module simply use `DEBUG=*`.
137 You can also exclude specific debuggers by prefixing them with a "-" character.
138 For example, `DEBUG=*,-connect:*` would include all debuggers except those
139 starting with "connect:".
141 ## Environment Variables
143 When running through Node.js, you can set a few environment variables that will
144 change the behavior of the debug logging:
147 |-----------|-------------------------------------------------|
148 | `DEBUG` | Enables/disables specific debugging namespaces. |
149 | `DEBUG_HIDE_DATE` | Hide date from debug output (non-TTY). |
150 | `DEBUG_COLORS`| Whether or not to use colors in the debug output. |
151 | `DEBUG_DEPTH` | Object inspection depth. |
152 | `DEBUG_SHOW_HIDDEN` | Shows hidden properties on inspected objects. |
155 __Note:__ The environment variables beginning with `DEBUG_` end up being
156 converted into an Options object that gets used with `%o`/`%O` formatters.
157 See the Node.js documentation for
158 [`util.inspect()`](https://nodejs.org/api/util.html#util_util_inspect_object_options)
159 for the complete list.
163 Debug uses [printf-style](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Printf_format_string) formatting.
164 Below are the officially supported formatters:
166 | Formatter | Representation |
167 |-----------|----------------|
168 | `%O` | Pretty-print an Object on multiple lines. |
169 | `%o` | Pretty-print an Object all on a single line. |
171 | `%d` | Number (both integer and float). |
172 | `%j` | JSON. Replaced with the string '[Circular]' if the argument contains circular references. |
173 | `%%` | Single percent sign ('%'). This does not consume an argument. |
176 ### Custom formatters
178 You can add custom formatters by extending the `debug.formatters` object.
179 For example, if you wanted to add support for rendering a Buffer as hex with
180 `%h`, you could do something like:
183 const createDebug = require('debug')
184 createDebug.formatters.h = (v) => {
185 return v.toString('hex')
189 const debug = createDebug('foo')
190 debug('this is hex: %h', new Buffer('hello world'))
191 // foo this is hex: 68656c6c6f20776f726c6421 +0ms
197 You can build a browser-ready script using [browserify](https://github.com/substack/node-browserify),
198 or just use the [browserify-as-a-service](https://wzrd.in/) [build](https://wzrd.in/standalone/debug@latest),
199 if you don't want to build it yourself.
201 Debug's enable state is currently persisted by `localStorage`.
202 Consider the situation shown below where you have `worker:a` and `worker:b`,
203 and wish to debug both. You can enable this using `localStorage.debug`:
206 localStorage.debug = 'worker:*'
209 And then refresh the page.
212 a = debug('worker:a');
213 b = debug('worker:b');
215 setInterval(function(){
216 a('doing some work');
219 setInterval(function(){
220 b('doing some work');
227 By default `debug` will log to stderr, however this can be configured per-namespace by overriding the `log` method:
229 Example [_stdout.js_](./examples/node/stdout.js):
232 var debug = require('debug');
233 var error = debug('app:error');
235 // by default stderr is used
236 error('goes to stderr!');
238 var log = debug('app:log');
239 // set this namespace to log via console.log
240 log.log = console.log.bind(console); // don't forget to bind to console!
241 log('goes to stdout');
242 error('still goes to stderr!');
244 // set all output to go via console.info
245 // overrides all per-namespace log settings
246 debug.log = console.info.bind(console);
247 error('now goes to stdout via console.info');
248 log('still goes to stdout, but via console.info now');
251 ## Checking whether a debug target is enabled
253 After you've created a debug instance, you can determine whether or not it is
254 enabled by checking the `enabled` property:
257 const debug = require('debug')('http');
264 You can also manually toggle this property to force the debug instance to be
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349 Copyright (c) 2014-2017 TJ Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca>
351 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
352 a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
353 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
354 without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
355 distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
356 permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
357 the following conditions:
359 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
360 included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
362 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
363 EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
364 MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
365 IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
366 CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
367 TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
368 SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.