How to get console.log line numbers shown in Nodejs?

All solutions to this question so far rely on splitting and matching the stack trace as a string, which will break in (the unlikely) case the format of that string is changed in the future. Inspired by this gist on GitHub and the other answers here, I want to provide my own solution:

'use strict';

const path = require('path');

['debug', 'log', 'warn', 'error'].forEach((methodName) => {
    const originalLoggingMethod = console[methodName];
    console[methodName] = (firstArgument, ...otherArguments) => {
        const originalPrepareStackTrace = Error.prepareStackTrace;
        Error.prepareStackTrace = (_, stack) => stack;
        const callee = new Error().stack[1];
        Error.prepareStackTrace = originalPrepareStackTrace;
        const relativeFileName = path.relative(process.cwd(), callee.getFileName());
        const prefix = `${relativeFileName}:${callee.getLineNumber()}:`;
        if (typeof firstArgument === 'string') {
            originalLoggingMethod(prefix + ' ' + firstArgument, ...otherArguments);
        } else {
            originalLoggingMethod(prefix, firstArgument, ...otherArguments);
        }
    };
});

// Tests:
console.log('%s %d', 'hi', 42);
console.log({ a: 'foo', b: 'bar'});

Unlike the other solutions, this script

  • outputs no additional lines and
  • handles string substitutions correctly.

You can color the prefix with chalk or color.js, but I didn't want to introduce dependencies for this here.

The above script uses the V8 API to customize stack traces. The callee is a CallSite object with the following methods in case you want to customize the prefix:

  • getThis: returns the value of this
  • getTypeName: returns the type of this as a string. This is the name of the function stored in the constructor field of this, if available, otherwise the object’s [[Class]] internal property.
  • getFunction: returns the current function
  • getFunctionName: returns the name of the current function, typically its name property. If a name property is not available an attempt is made to infer a name from the function’s context.
  • getMethodName: returns the name of the property of this or one of its prototypes that holds the current function
  • getFileName: if this function was defined in a script returns the name of the script
  • getLineNumber: if this function was defined in a script returns the current line number
  • getColumnNumber: if this function was defined in a script returns the current column number
  • getEvalOrigin: if this function was created using a call to eval returns a string representing the location where eval was called
  • isToplevel: is this a top-level invocation, that is, is this the global object?
  • isEval: does this call take place in code defined by a call to eval?
  • isNative: is this call in native V8 code?
  • isConstructor: is this a constructor call?
  • isAsync: is this an async call (i.e. await or Promise.all())?
  • isPromiseAll: is this an async call to Promise.all()?
  • getPromiseIndex: returns the index of the promise element that was followed in Promise.all() for async stack traces, or null if the CallSite is not a Promise.all() call.

This answer is a cross-post of an answer I just gave to a similar question as more people might find this page.


Having full stack trace for each call is a bit noisy. I've just improved the @noppa's solution to print only the initiator:

['log', 'warn', 'error'].forEach((methodName) => {
  const originalMethod = console[methodName];
  console[methodName] = (...args) => {
    let initiator = 'unknown place';
    try {
      throw new Error();
    } catch (e) {
      if (typeof e.stack === 'string') {
        let isFirst = true;
        for (const line of e.stack.split('\n')) {
          const matches = line.match(/^\s+at\s+(.*)/);
          if (matches) {
            if (!isFirst) { // first line - current function
                            // second line - caller (what we are looking for)
              initiator = matches[1];
              break;
            }
            isFirst = false;
          }
        }
      }
    }
    originalMethod.apply(console, [...args, '\n', `  at ${initiator}`]);
  };
});

It also patches other methods (useful for Nodejs, since warn and error don't come with a stack trace as in Chrome).

So your console would look something like:

Loading settings.json
   at fs.readdirSync.filter.forEach (.../settings.js:21:13)
Server is running on http://localhost:3000 or http://127.0.0.1:3000
   at Server.app.listen (.../index.js:67:11)

I found Dmitry Druganov's answer really nice, but I tried it on Windows 10 (with Node 8.9.4) and it didn't work well. It was printing the full path, something like:

Loading settings.json
   at fs.readdirSync.filter.forEach (D:\Users\Piyin\Projects\test\settings.js:21:13)
Server is running on http://localhost:3000 or http://127.0.0.1:3000
   at Server.app.listen (D:\Users\Piyin\Projects\test\index.js:67:11)

So I took said answer and made these improvements (from my point of view):

  • Assume the important line of the stack trace is the third one (the first one is the word Error and the second one is where you place this script)
  • Remove the current script folder path (given by __dirname, which in my case is D:\Users\Piyin\Projects\test). Note: For this to work well, the script should be on the project's main Javascript
  • Remove the starting at
  • Place the file information before the actual log
  • Format the information as Class.method at path/to/file:line:column

Here it is:

['log','warn','error'].forEach((methodName) => {
  const originalMethod = console[methodName];
  console[methodName] = (...args) => {
    try {
      throw new Error();
    } catch (error) {
      originalMethod.apply(
        console,
        [
          (
            error
            .stack // Grabs the stack trace
            .split('\n')[2] // Grabs third line
            .trim() // Removes spaces
            .substring(3) // Removes three first characters ("at ")
            .replace(__dirname, '') // Removes script folder path
            .replace(/\s\(./, ' at ') // Removes first parentheses and replaces it with " at "
            .replace(/\)/, '') // Removes last parentheses
          ),
          '\n',
          ...args
        ]
      );
    }
  };
});

And here's the new output:

fs.readdirSync.filter.forEach at settings.js:21:13
 Loading settings.json
Server.app.listen at index.js:67:11
 Server is running on http://localhost:3000 or http://127.0.0.1:3000

Here's the minified-by-hand code (240 bytes):

['log','warn','error'].forEach(a=>{let b=console[a];console[a]=(...c)=>{try{throw new Error}catch(d){b.apply(console,[d.stack.split('\n')[2].trim().substring(3).replace(__dirname,'').replace(/\s\(./,' at ').replace(/\)/,''),'\n',...c])}}});

For a temporary hack to find the log statements that you want to get rid of, it's not too difficult to override console.log yourself.

var log = console.log;
console.log = function() {
    log.apply(console, arguments);
    // Print the stack trace
    console.trace();
};


// Somewhere else...
function foo(){
    console.log('Foobar');
}
foo();

That will print something like 

Foobar
Trace
at Console.console.log (index.js:4:13)
at foo (index.js:10:13)
at Object.<anonymous> (index.js:12:1)
...

A lot of noise in there but the second line in the call stack, at foo (index.js:10:13), should point you to the right place.

Tags:

Node.Js

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