Import assignment should work with esnext targets

Search Terms

import assignment

Suggestion

#22321 was closed by a bot that thought the issue was addressed, but it wasn't.

Import assignment should work with esnext targets

Use Cases

JS modules loaders for Node might not support importing CJS with import statements, so you would use require to import them. But we'd still like to bring in their types. This is what import assignment is designed for, it's just disallowed with esnext targets.

Examples

This:

import * as m from './a-module.js';
import cjs = require('some-cjs');

should emit:

import * as m from './a-module.js';
const cjs = require('some-cjs');

Checklist

My suggestion meets these guidelines:

• This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript / JavaScript code
• This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
• This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
• This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. new expression-level syntax)

No files or tests are named. Start by tracing TypeScript's import-assignment handling for esnext targets, then compare the current output with the issue's example; the work is done when the assignment emits a require-based declaration while preserving the existing import.