If you have a class with a literal member then you can use that property to discriminate between union members.
As an example consider the union of a Square and Rectangle, here we have a member kind that exists on both union members and is of a particular literal type:
interface Square {
kind: "square";
size: number;
}
interface Rectangle {
kind: "rectangle";
width: number;
height: number;
}
type Shape = Square | Rectangle;If you use a type guard style check (==, ===, !=, !==) or switch on the discriminant property (here kind) TypeScript will realize that the object must be of the type that has that specific literal and do a type narrowing for you :)
function area(s: Shape) {
if (s.kind === "square") {
// Now TypeScript *knows* that `s` must be a square ;)
// So you can use its members safely :)
return s.size * s.size;
}
else {
// Wasn't a square? So TypeScript will figure out that it must be a Rectangle ;)
// So you can use its members safely :)
return s.width * s.height;
}
}Quite commonly you want to make sure that all members of a union have some code(action) against them.
interface Square {
kind: "square";
size: number;
}
interface Rectangle {
kind: "rectangle";
width: number;
height: number;
}
// Someone just added this new `Circle` Type
// We would like to let TypeScript give an error at any place that *needs* to cater for this
interface Circle {
kind: "circle";
radius: number;
}
type Shape = Square | Rectangle | Circle;As an example of where stuff goes bad:
function area(s: Shape) {
if (s.kind === "square") {
return s.size * s.size;
}
else if (s.kind === "rectangle") {
return s.width * s.height;
}
// Would it be great if you could get TypeScript to give you an error?
}You can do that by simply adding a fall through and making sure that the inferred type in that block is compatible with the never type. For example if you add the exhaustive check you get a nice error:
function area(s: Shape) {
if (s.kind === "square") {
return s.size * s.size;
}
else if (s.kind === "rectangle") {
return s.width * s.height;
}
else {
// ERROR : `Circle` is not assignable to `never`
const _exhaustiveCheck: never = s;
}
}That forces you to handle this new case :
function area(s: Shape) {
if (s.kind === "square") {
return s.size * s.size;
}
else if (s.kind === "rectangle") {
return s.width * s.height;
}
else if (s.kind === "circle") {
return Math.PI * (s.radius **2);
}
else {
// Okay once more
const _exhaustiveCheck: never = s;
}
}TIP: of course you can also do it in a switch statement:
function area(s: Shape) {
switch (s.kind) {
case "square": return s.size * s.size;
case "rectangle": return s.width * s.height;
case "circle": return Math.PI * s.radius * s.radius;
default: const _exhaustiveCheck: never = s;
}
}If using strictNullChecks and doing exhaustive checks, TypeScript might complain "not all code paths return a value". You can silence that by simply returning the _exhaustiveCheck variable (of type never). So:
function area(s: Shape) {
switch (s.kind) {
case "square": return s.size * s.size;
case "rectangle": return s.width * s.height;
case "circle": return Math.PI * s.radius * s.radius;
default:
const _exhaustiveCheck: never = s;
return _exhaustiveCheck;
}
}You can write a function that takes a never (and therefore can only be called with a variable that is inferred as never) and then throws an error if its body ever executes:
function assertNever(x:never): never {
throw new Error('Unexpected value. Should have been never.');
}Example use with the area function:
interface Square {
kind: "square";
size: number;
}
interface Rectangle {
kind: "rectangle";
width: number;
height: number;
}
type Shape = Square | Rectangle;
function area(s: Shape) {
switch (s.kind) {
case "square": return s.size * s.size;
case "rectangle": return s.width * s.height;
// If a new case is added at compile time you will get a compile error
// If a new value appears at runtime you will get a runtime error
default: return assertNever(s);
}
}Say you have a data structure of the form:
type DTO = {
name: string
}And after you have a bunch of DTOs you realize that name was a poor choice. You can add versioning retrospectively by creating a new union with literal number (or string if you want) of DTO. Mark the version 0 as undefined and if you have strictNullChecks enabled it will just work out:
type DTO =
| {
version: undefined, // version 0
name: string,
}
| {
version: 1,
firstName: string,
lastName: string,
}
// Even later
| {
version: 2,
firstName: string,
middleName: string,
lastName: string,
}
// So onExample usage of such a DTO:
function printDTO(dto:DTO) {
if (dto.version == null) {
console.log(dto.name);
} else if (dto.version == 1) {
console.log(dto.firstName,dto.lastName);
} else if (dto.version == 2) {
console.log(dto.firstName, dto.middleName, dto.lastName);
} else {
const _exhaustiveCheck: never = dto;
}
}A popular library that makes use of this is redux.
Here is the gist of redux with TypeScript type annotations added:
import { createStore } from 'redux'
type Action
= {
type: 'INCREMENT'
}
| {
type: 'DECREMENT'
}
/**
* This is a reducer, a pure function with (state, action) => state signature.
* It describes how an action transforms the state into the next state.
*
* The shape of the state is up to you: it can be a primitive, an array, an object,
* or even an Immutable.js data structure. The only important part is that you should
* not mutate the state object, but return a new object if the state changes.
*
* In this example, we use a `switch` statement and strings, but you can use a helper that
* follows a different convention (such as function maps) if it makes sense for your
* project.
*/
function counter(state = 0, action: Action) {
switch (action.type) {
case 'INCREMENT':
return state + 1
case 'DECREMENT':
return state - 1
default:
return state
}
}
// Create a Redux store holding the state of your app.
// Its API is { subscribe, dispatch, getState }.
let store = createStore(counter)
// You can use subscribe() to update the UI in response to state changes.
// Normally you'd use a view binding library (e.g. React Redux) rather than subscribe() directly.
// However, it can also be handy to persist the current state in the localStorage.
store.subscribe(() =>
console.log(store.getState())
)
// The only way to mutate the internal state is to dispatch an action.
// The actions can be serialized, logged or stored and later replayed.
store.dispatch({ type: 'INCREMENT' })
// 1
store.dispatch({ type: 'INCREMENT' })
// 2
store.dispatch({ type: 'DECREMENT' })
// 1Using it with TypeScript gives you safety against typo errors, increased refactor-ability and self documenting code.