advanced patterns when using JSON.stringify with circular references in JavaScript
I'm trying to implement I'm trying to debug Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy. This might be a silly question, but I'm working with a question when trying to serialize an object that has circular references using `JSON.stringify()`. When I try to stringify an object like this: ```javascript let obj = {}; obj.self = obj; // Creating a circular reference const jsonString = JSON.stringify(obj); console.log(jsonString); ``` I expect to get a JSON string representation of the object, but instead, I receive a `TypeError`: ``` TypeError: Converting circular structure to JSON ``` I know that `JSON.stringify()` does not handle circular references by default, but I was hoping for a way to do this without resorting to third-party libraries. I've tried using a replacer function, but I need to seem to figure out how to implement that effectively. Here’s what I attempted: ```javascript function replacer(key, value) { if (value === obj) return '[Circular]'; return value; } const jsonString = JSON.stringify(obj, replacer); console.log(jsonString); ``` However, this still doesn't seem to work as expected. The output just shows `undefined` for the circular reference. Are there any best practices or techniques to handle circular references in JSON serialization without losing data or using external libraries? I'm working with Node.js version 14.x and would appreciate any detailed insights or examples of how to properly implement this. Is there a better approach? For context: I'm using Javascript on Linux. Any ideas what could be causing this? I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. I'm coming from a different tech stack and learning Javascript. Thanks, I really appreciate it!