microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Allow skipping some generics when calling a function with multiple generics

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Description

Right now in TypeScript it's all or nothing when calling generic methods. You can either skip typing all the generics altogether and they will be inferred from the context (if possible), or you have to manually (re)define all of them. But the reality isn't black and white, there are also shades of gray, where we can infer types for some of the generic parameters, but not others. Currently those have to be unnecessarily verbose by forcing the programmer to explicitly restate them.

Take a look at these 3 cases:

Case 1 - everything can be inferred - no need to call the method with <> definition:

function case1<A, B, C>(a: A, b: B, c: C): A {}

example(1, '2', true);

Compiler knows that:
A is number
B is string
C is boolean


Case 2 - nothing can be inferred, so we need to state what A, B and C should be, otherwise they'll default to {}:

function case2<A, B, C>(): A {}

example<number, string, boolean>();

Case 3 - the one that's interesting to this feature request - some can be inferred, some can't:

function case3<A, B, C>(b: string, c: boolean): A {}

// incorrect type of A - left unspecified:
example('thing'); 

// correct, but unnecessarily verbose - we already know that 'thing' is a string and true is a bool
example<number, string, boolean>('thing', true);

Now, typing string, boolean in the above example isn't a big deal, but with complex scenarios, say with a method using 5 generics, where you can infer 4 of them, retyping them all seems overly verbose and prone to error.

It would be great if we could have some way to skip re-typing the types that can automatically be inferred. Something like a special auto or inferred type, so we could write:

example<number, auto, auto>('thing', bool);

Or maybe even, if we only want to specify those up to a certain point:

example<number>('thing', bool);

The above "short-hand" notation could perhaps be different to account for function overloads with different number of generics.

Having such a feature would solve newcomers encountering problems such as this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/38687965/typescript-generics-argument-type-inference/38688143

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Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by reviewing the three generic-invocation examples and the 81-comment discussion, then determine whether a syntax and behavior have been agreed; done would require an accepted design and corresponding compiler changes.

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
28/100

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