dart-lang / dart-lang/language
Partial Record destructuring
- Dominant language
- TeX
- Stars
- 2.9k
- Forks
- 239
- Avg merge
- 2d 18h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 14
Description
## Problem:
Currently, it is not possible to use destructuring to only extract one or two variables out of a Record.
Consider a large Record:
```dart
typedef Big = ({ int field1, int field2, ...., int field8 });
```
If we want to extract `field1`+`field2` but nothing else, we currently have to write:
```dart
void main() {
final Big big = (field1: 42, field2: 42, field8: 42);
final (:field1, :field2, field3: _, field4: _, ..., field8: _) = big;
}
```
That's bloody inconvenient. It's both really tedious to type, difficult to read (due to a lot of noise), and difficult to maintain.
In particular, adding a new field in that Record requires going through **every** places where it was destructured.
## Proposal:
When destructuring is used inside variable declarations, we could make specifying any field optional.
Using the previous `Big` record, we could therefore write:
```dart
void main() {
final Big big = (field1: 42, field2: 42, field8: 42);
final (:field1, :field2) = big;
}
```
This is how Record types work in Typescript.
Contributor guide
Research direction
Start with the Problem and Proposal examples in this issue, then read the 12-comment discussion for existing objections or decisions. No files, tests, or entry points are named; the work is done only when the semantics and required language-specification changes for partial Record destructuring are agreed.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- dart
- Domain
- compilers
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100