Is there a way to auto expand objects in Chrome Dev Tools?

Consider using console.table().

Might not be the best answer, but I've been doing this somewhere in my code.

Update:

Use JSON.stringify to expand your object automatically:

> a = [{name: 'Joe', age: 5}, {name: 'John', age: 6}]
> JSON.stringify(a, true, 2)
"[
  {
    "name": "Joe",
    "age": 5
  },
  {
    "name": "John",
    "age": 6
  }
]"

You can always make a shortcut function if it hurts to type all that out:

j = function(d) {
    return JSON.stringify(d, true, 2)
}

j(a)

Previous answer:

pretty = function(d)
{
  var s = []
  for (var k in d) {
    s.push(k + ': ' + d[k])
  }
  console.log(s.join(', '))
}

then, instead of:

-> a = [{name: 'Joe', age: 5}, {name: 'John', age: 6}]
-> a
<- [Object, Object]

You do:

-> a.forEach(pretty)
<- name: Joe, age: 5
   name: John, age: 6

Not the best solution, but works well for my usage. Deeper objects will not work so that's something that can be improved on.

To expand / collapse a node and all its children,

Ctrl + Alt + Click or Opt + Click on arrow icon

(note that although the dev tools doc lists Ctrl + Alt + Click, on Windows all that is needed is Alt + Click).

While the solution mentioning JSON.stringify is pretty great for most of the cases, it has a few limitations

• It can not handle items with circular references where as console.log can take care of such objects elegantly.
• Also, if you have a large tree, then ability to interactively fold away some nodes can make exploration easier.

Here is a solution that solves both of the above by creatively (ab)using console.group:

function expandedLog(item, maxDepth = 100, depth = 0){
    if (depth > maxDepth ) {
        console.log(item);
        return;
    }
    if (typeof item === 'object' && item !== null) {
        Object.entries(item).forEach(([key, value]) => {
            console.group(key + ' : ' +(typeof value));
            expandedLog(value, maxDepth, depth + 1);
            console.groupEnd();
        });
    } else {
        console.log(item);
    }
}

Now running:

expandedLog({
    "glossary": {
        "title": "example glossary",
        "GlossDiv": {
            "title": "S",
            "GlossList": {
                "GlossEntry": {
                    "ID": "SGML",
                    "SortAs": "SGML",
                    "GlossTerm": "Standard Generalized Markup Language",
                    "Acronym": "SGML",
                    "Abbrev": "ISO 8879:1986",
                    "GlossDef": {
                        "para": "A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook.",
                        "GlossSeeAlso": ["GML", "XML"]
                    },
                    "GlossSee": "markup"
                }
            }
        }
    }
})

Will give you something like:

The value of maxDepth can be adjusted to a desired level, and beyond that level of nesting - expanded log will fall back to usual console.log

Try running something like:

x = { a: 10, b: 20 }
x.x = x 
expandedLog(x)

Also please note that console.group is non-standard.