Custom object formatters allow users to customize how an object is
stringified in matcher failure messages. This can already be done by
adding a `jasmineToString` method to the objects in question. But
it's not always desirable or possible to do that, particularly when
objects of a given "type" do not inherit from a specific prototype.
For instance, suppose a web service returns a list of foos that are
deserialized from JSON, e.g.:
{ fooId: 42, /* more properties */ }
The only way to define `jasmineToString` on those is by writing code to
add it to each instance at runtime. But a custom object formatter can
recognize that the object it's looking at is a foo and format it
accordingly:
jasmine.addCustomObjectFormatter(function(obj) {
if (typeof obj.fooId !== 'number') {
return undefined;
}
return '[Foo with ID ' + obj.fooId + ']';
});
Unlike `jasmineToString`, custom object formatters are scoped to a
particular spec or suite and don't require any changes to the code
under test.