symbol.description

The read-only description property is a string returning the optional description of Symbol objects.

Syntax

Symbol('myDescription').description;
Symbol.iterator.description;
Symbol.for('foo').description;

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

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 compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

See also

• Symbol.prototype.toString()
• Polyfill: https://npmjs.com/symbol.prototype.description