tosource

What is tosource?

The 'tosource' npm package is used to convert JavaScript objects into their source code representation. This can be useful for debugging, serialization, or simply understanding the structure of complex objects.

What are tosource's main functionalities?

Convert Object to Source Code

This feature allows you to convert a JavaScript object into its source code representation. The code sample demonstrates converting a nested object into a string of its source code.

const tosource = require('tosource');
const obj = { a: 1, b: [2, 3], c: { d: 4 } };
const source = tosource(obj);
console.log(source);

Handle Functions and RegExp

This feature allows you to convert objects that contain functions and regular expressions into their source code representation. The code sample demonstrates converting an object with a function and a RegExp.

const tosource = require('tosource');
const obj = { a: function() { return 1; }, b: /test/i };
const source = tosource(obj);
console.log(source);

Circular References

This feature allows you to handle circular references within objects. The code sample demonstrates converting an object with a circular reference.

const tosource = require('tosource');
const obj = { a: 1 };
obj.b = obj;
const source = tosource(obj);
console.log(source);

Other packages similar to tosource

json-stringify-safe

The 'json-stringify-safe' package is used to safely stringify objects with circular references. Unlike 'tosource', it does not convert objects to their source code representation but ensures that JSON.stringify does not throw an error when encountering circular references.

util

The 'util' package in Node.js provides a 'util.inspect' function that can be used to convert objects to a string representation. While it does not produce source code, it is useful for debugging and logging complex objects.

circular-json

The 'circular-json' package is another option for serializing objects with circular references. It converts objects to a JSON format that can be parsed back into the original object, but it does not provide a source code representation like 'tosource'.

README

node-tosource

toSource is a super simple function that converts JavaScript objects back to source code.

Introduction

Motivation: JSON doesn't support serializing functions, dates, or regular expressions. I wanted a quick and simple way to push trusted data structures with code from Node down to the browser.

This should make it easier to share code and modules between the server and client.

Installation

npm install tosource

Examples

The following code:

var toSource = require('tosource')
console.log(toSource(
    [ 4, 5, 6, "hello", {
        a:2,
        'b':3,
        '1':4,
        'if':5,
        yes:true,
        no:false,
        nan:NaN,
        infinity:Infinity,
        'undefined':undefined,
        'null':null,
        foo: function(bar) {
            console.log("woo! a is "+a)
            console.log("and bar is "+bar)
        }
    },
    /we$/gi,
    new Date("Wed, 09 Aug 1995 00:00:00 GMT")]
))

Output:

[ 4,
  5,
  6,
  "hello",
  { "1":4,
    a:2,
    b:3,
    "if":5,
    yes:true,
    no:false,
    nan:NaN,
    infinity:Infinity,
    "undefined":undefined,
    "null":null,
    foo:function (bar) {
            console.log("woo! a is "+a)
            console.log("and bar is "+bar)
        } },
  /we$/gi,
  new Date(807926400000) ]

See test.js for more examples.

Supported Types

• Numbers
• Strings
• Array literals
• object literals
• function
• RegExp literals
• Dates
• true
• false
• undefined
• null
• NaN
• Infinity

Notes

• Functions are serialized with func.toString(), no closure properties are serialized
• Multiple references to the same object become copies
• Circular references are encoded as {$circularReference:1}

License

toSource is open source software under the zlib license.

Changelog

v0.1.3 (2014-10-08)

• use toString for functions