Remove all console.log() from your project in less than a minute

Introduction

console.log() is a debugging tool that can assist you to figure out what your code is doing. You may follow along as your code executes by displaying a message that contains either descriptive text that tells you what's going on or the values of certain variables.

Removing all console.log() from your project before production can be very difficult, Here is how to remove all console.log() from your project in less than a minute.

Step 1

Open your project in VS Code ( Since we are using Regex, It is easier to use it in VS Code )

Step 2

Click on the search icon on VS Code sidebar. It will open the search option

Step 3

In search placeholder type console.log.*$ and select Use Regex option which can be found on the upper right corner of the search panel that’s designated by the icon .*

Step 4

Once you searched for all the console.log(), Click on replace to remove all console.log()
and BOOM 💥 Now you don't have any console.log() in your project

Conclusion ⌛

I hope you found this short helpful. If you need any help please let me know in the comment section.

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👋 Thanks for reading, See you next time

Comments

[Ian Pride]

Won't this only work if the console command is the only thing until the end of the line? If you have anything else on the same line after it it will delete that as well. So if your line has multiple console commands in a ternary shortcut (? :, I get that this is not readability friendly, but since it's just debug anyway it's still common) or any other regular commands then you'll have a problem.

[Ayc0]

That's cool!
But this has a few issues:

• it won't work with multi line console.log,
• it won't work if you have something else in the same line after the console,
• it won't work with if you do something like const fn = console.log (I mean it will remove the console, but the expression will become wrong).

I'd recommend instead using AST based tools like a webpack plugin, or a eslint custom rule, to detect a CallExpression with the callee being a MemberExpression with the object being console and the property log.

[Suhail Kakar]

Thanks @ayc0
For multiline you need to use console\.log\(([^)]+)\);

[Ayc0]

It still won't work for code snippet like those:

console.log(
  'hello',
   world(1)
)

(As it contains a closing parenthesis)

[wimdenherder]

console\.log\((.|\n)*?\);?

It matches anything until it encounters ) again, with an optional whitespace and ;

[Md Adil]

it only selected the console.log which are commented not uncommented ones

[wimdenherder]

It's funny how console.log.*$ can read like an wildcard *, but it's not. This regular expression matches also:

function console2log() {
return "A super important function in the script";
}

That's because the dot (.) in regex matches anything. The * means that it can occur 0 or more times.

PS: visual code treats the regex case insensitive

[wimdenherder]

This matches also multi lines:

console\.log\((.|\n)*?\);?

[wimdenherder]

PS: if you have ) in your message this one won't work
console.log("check function() {}")

[Deyvison Rocha]

Nice tip!

[Suhail Kakar]

Thank you Deyvison, Glad you liked it : )

[Jahid Hasan]

great

[Suhail Kakar]

Thanks Jahid :D

[Noel da Costa]

Doesn't work for multi-line console logs

[stevenharderjr]

This is a beautiful illustration of the “now you have two problems” principle of regex.