Quick testing for console.log

Warning This article was written over six months ago, and may contain outdated information.

I’m happy to see that IE8 includes native support for console.log, the JavaScript command which writes information to your preferred debugging tool (mine is Firebug). If you leave it in your code – as I did on my latest project – it throws an error in IE7 & below.

The way around it is to quickly check that the command is supported by your browser, and to provide an alternative (I use that old standby, alert) if not; and the quickest way to do that is with the if...else shorthand:

window.console ? console.log(foo) : alert(foo);

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