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Symbol.prototype.description

The description accessor property of Symbol values returns a string containing the description of this symbol, or undefined if the symbol has no description.

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Description

Symbol objects can be created with an optional description which can be used for debugging but not to access the symbol itself. The Symbol.prototype.description property can be used to read that description. It is different to Symbol.prototype.toString() as it does not contain the enclosing "Symbol()" string. See the examples.

Examples

Using description

js
Symbol("desc").toString(); // "Symbol(desc)"
Symbol("desc").description; // "desc"
Symbol("").description; // ""
Symbol().description; // undefined

// well-known symbols
Symbol.iterator.toString(); // "Symbol(Symbol.iterator)"
Symbol.iterator.description; // "Symbol.iterator"

// global symbols
Symbol.for("foo").toString(); // "Symbol(foo)"
Symbol.for("foo").description; // "foo"

Specifications

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile Server
Chrome Edge Firefox Opera Safari Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet WebView Android Deno Node.js
description 70 79 63 57 12.1
12No support for an undefined description.
70 63 49 12.2
12No support for an undefined description.
10.0 70 1.0 11.0.0

See also

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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Symbol/description