You don’t have to jump through all these hoops. Simply check if the console exists before using it.
So, instead of:
console.log('foo');
Use:
window.console && console.log('foo');
…and you won’t get any errors.
Alternatively, you could just check for it at the top of your script, and if it’s undefined, just fill it with an empty function:
// At the top of your script:
if ( ! window.console ) console = { log: function(){} };
// If you use other console methods, add them to the object literal above
// Then, anywhere in your script:
console.log('This message will be logged, but will not cause an error in IE7');
For a more robust solution, use this piece of code (taken from twitter’s source code):
// Avoid `console` errors in browsers that lack a console.
(function() {
var method;
var noop = function () {};
var methods = [
'assert', 'clear', 'count', 'debug', 'dir', 'dirxml', 'error',
'exception', 'group', 'groupCollapsed', 'groupEnd', 'info', 'log',
'markTimeline', 'profile', 'profileEnd', 'table', 'time', 'timeEnd',
'timeStamp', 'trace', 'warn'
];
var length = methods.length;
var console = (window.console = window.console || {});
while (length--) {
method = methods[length];
// Only stub undefined methods.
if (!console[method]) {
console[method] = noop;
}
}
}());