What does [object Object] mean?

Question

I am trying to alert a returned value from a function and I get this in the alert:

[object Object]  

Here is the JavaScript code:

Answer 1

It's the value returned by that object's toString() function.

---

I understand what you're trying to do, because I answered your question yesterday about determining which div is visible. :)
The whichIsVisible() function returns an actual jQuery object, because I thought that would be more programmatically useful. If you want to use this function for debugging purposes, you can just do something like this:

function whichIsVisible_v2()
{
    if (!$1.is(':hidden')) return '#1';
    if (!$2.is(':hidden')) return '#2';
}

That said, you really should be using a proper debugger rather than alert() if you're trying to debug a problem. If you're using Firefox, Firebug is excellent. If you're using IE8, Safari, or Chrome, they have built-in debuggers.