Node.js formatted console output

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// }

There's nothing built into NodeJS to do this. The "closest" you'd come is util.format, which still doesn't do much unfortunately (reference).

You'll need to look into other modules to provide a richer formatting experience. For example: sprintf.

Sprintf-js allows both positional (0, 1, 2) arguments and named arguments.

A few examples of padding and alignment:

var sprintf=require("sprintf-js").sprintf;console.log(sprintf("Space Padded => %10.2f", 123.4567));console.log(sprintf("    _ Padded => %'_10.2f", 123.4567));console.log(sprintf("    0 Padded => %010.2f", 123.4567));console.log(sprintf(" Left align => %-10.2f", 123.4567));

Results:

Space Padded =>     123.46    _ Padded => ____123.46    0 Padded => 0000123.46 Left align => 123.46    

If the data is tabular, then the simplest way would be to do it with console.table

https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v10.x/docs/api/console.html#console_console_table_tabulardata_properties

This is the code.

console.table(  COMMANDS.map(command => {    return {      "Long Option": command.long_option,      "Short Option": command.short_option,      Description: command.description    };  }));

You don't need external libraries for it.Here is sample output. You only need to pass an array object.

Not only in Nodejs, but it also works in chrome.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Console/table