Non-exported classes in type declaration files leaking value names

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
30/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
typescript
Domain
compilers

Research direction

Reproduce the behavior using the classes.d.ts, test.js, and test.ts examples in the issue, then trace declaration-file module and symbol resolution in the TypeScript compiler. Done means the non-exported class A is not exposed as a value while the type references required by exported class B continue to resolve, with regression coverage for both examples.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Docs

TypeScript Version: 3.5.2

Search Terms: ambient module declaration export declare class type name

Code

In a file called classes.d.ts:

declare class A {}
export declare class B extends A {}

In a file called test.js:

let a = require('classes').A;

In a file called test.ts:

import { A } from './types/classes';

[NEW] Assumptions:
The following is a list of assumptions I had when originally opening this issue:

  1. Type Declaration Files work like modules: once you use import or export [on a top-level declaration], only explicitly exported declarations are visible externally.
  2. Type names declared in a Declaration File are always accessible via import types (at least those that are used by exported types.
    • E.g. export class B extends A exports the type names A and B, even if A was not directly exported.
  3. Value names declared in a module-style Declaration File (see #1 above) are only accessible if explicitly exported.

These assumptions are the result of reading the documentation and working with declaration files. Note that the documentation does not mention:

  1. All declarations in a declaration file are implicitly exported.
  2. Special [and undocumented?] export {}; syntax causes only explicitly exported declarations to be available by consumers of the declaration file.

I list them here to provide context for the Expected Behavior section.

Expected behavior:
In both cases , an Error that name 'A' could be found in module 'classes'.

I expect in this case that TypeScript is capable of resolving the following from the declaration file:

  1. The Value "B".
  2. The Types "A" and "B".

In other words, I should be able to use import types to resolve class A, but attempts to use them should fail.

Actual behavior:
No compiler error in either case. TypeScript-powered IDEs (e.g. VSCode) happily show that the full non-exported class A is available.

In short, a non-exported, declared class should resolve in the same way as an interface.

As things stand today, TypeScript erroneously resolves the Value "A".

Playground Link: NA

Related Issues: NA

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