Adding timestamps to all console messages

Question

I have a complete, deployed, Express-based project, with many console.log() and console.error() statements throughout. The project runs using forever, directing the st

Answer 1

If you want a solution without another external dependency but you want to keep the full functionalities of console.log (multiple parameters, variable insertion) you can use the following code:

var log = console.log;

console.log = function () {
    var first_parameter = arguments[0];
    var other_parameters = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1);

    function formatConsoleDate (date) {
        var hour = date.getHours();
        var minutes = date.getMinutes();
        var seconds = date.getSeconds();
        var milliseconds = date.getMilliseconds();

        return '[' +
               ((hour < 10) ? '0' + hour: hour) +
               ':' +
               ((minutes < 10) ? '0' + minutes: minutes) +
               ':' +
               ((seconds < 10) ? '0' + seconds: seconds) +
               '.' +
               ('00' + milliseconds).slice(-3) +
               '] ';
    }

    log.apply(console, [formatConsoleDate(new Date()) + first_parameter].concat(other_parameters));
};

You can modify the formatConsoleDate function to format the date how you want.

This code needs to be written only once on top of your main JavaScript file.

console.log("he%s", "y") will print something like this:

[12:22:55.053] hey