microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Provide a way to alias namespaces

Open
#10,187 17 comments 29 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Needs More Info Suggestion
Dominant language
Go
Stars
111k
Forks
14.3k
Avg merge
2d 4h
Merged PRs (30d)
132

Description

TypeScript should have a way to embed (type) namespaces. In the following case, assigned (embeded) namespace NS.A should have a C type.

TypeScript Version: master

Code

namespace NS_A {
  export class C {
  }
}
namespace NS {
  export var A = NS_A;
  export type A = NS_A;
}
var C = NS.A.C;
type C = NS.A.C;

Expected behavior:

$ node built/local/tsc.js --lib es6 -m commonjs --noEmit index.ts

Actual behavior:

$ node built/local/tsc.js --lib es6 -m commonjs --noEmit index.ts
index.ts(7,19): error TS2304: Cannot find name 'NS_A'.
index.ts(10,13): error TS2305: Module 'NS' has no exported member 'A'.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the reproducer in index.ts and run the issue's built/local/tsc.js command to confirm the namespace and type errors. Trace the compiler's handling of namespace aliases and exported types, then define the expected behavior for both the value expression and type reference. Done means the sample compiles without the reported errors.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.