JSON.stringify returning different values then a console.log

Question

I'm trying to write to a file in nodejs and I've run into an issue that I haven't found any solutions to online.

economy.people[member.id] = 0
fs.writeFile("./economy.json", JSON.stringify(economy, null, 2), (err) => {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(economy)
  console.log(JSON.stringify(economy, null, 2))   
  console.log('The file has been saved!');
})

When running this code, the following is returned:

{ government: 1000, banks: [], people: [ '517854168229216256': 0 ] }
{
  "government": 1000,
  "banks": [],
  "people": []
}
The file has been saved!

I'm wondering why JSON.stringify() returns something different than a console.log(), and what I could do to fix this so that they are the same, and return the same value.

Does this answer your question? Difference between console.log(obj) and console.log(JSON.stringify(obj)) — user13976487
– user13976487, Commented Jun 2, 2021 at 20:09

Schiem · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-02 20:13:06Z

2

It looks like economy.people is an array, not an object. Setting the property '517854168229216256' to 0 does not actually add that item to the array, so JSON.stringify ignores it.

However, arrays in Javascript are a type of object, and you can set any property on an object. console.log will print out these properties, which is why you're seeing the property when logging, but not when stringifying. Changing people to an object instead of an array should give you the expected result.

answered Jun 2, 2021 at 20:13

Schiem

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1 Comment

Levi_OP Over a year ago

I totally missed this! Thank you for the answer. (I've got a cooldown to mark it as the answer)

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