microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Aggregate function assertions

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Description

Suggestion

🔍 Search Terms

Multi-assertions, function assertion signatures, type assertions, aggregate assertions

✅ Viability 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. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, new syntax sugar for JS, etc.)
  • This feature would agree with the rest of TypeScript's Design Goals.

⭐ Suggestion

Allow functions that assert a type or condition to assert multiple types or conditions

(Maybe?) Allow functions with "asserts" signatures to return a type other than void.
(Update: the secondary goal is covered by other issues)

💻 Use Cases

It allows multiple type assertions at once.

// declare AssertionError

function assert(x: unknown, y: unknown): (asserts x is number) & (asserts y is number) {
    if (typeof x !== "number" || typeof y !== "number") {
        throw new AssertionError("Assert failed: 'x' and 'y' are not both numbers");
    }
}

or

function safeAdd(x: unknown, y: unknown): (number) & (asserts x is number) & (asserts y is number) {
    if (typeof x !== "number" || typeof y !== "number") {
        throw new AssertionError("`x` and `y` are not both numbers");
    } else {
        return x + y;
    }
}

or

declare function safeAdd(...args: unknown[]): asserts args is [number, number];

No idea what the syntax would be, but this should give the idea.

📃 Motivating Example

My use for this was that I had a function that accepted two parameters. It only operated if the first parameter was of a type (T), it also had an overload for the second parameter being the same type (T) or anything else.

declare function assertIsT (x: unknown): asserts x is T;
declare function isT (x: unknown): x is T;
function f (x: unknown, y: unknown): asserts x is T;
function f (x: T, y: T | H) {
    assertIsT(x);
    // x: T

    if ( isT(y) ) {
        // ... y: T
    } else {
        // ... y: H
    }
}

This was meant to be "JavaScript-compatible" code, as in, it could be used by a non-TS user with relative type safety, but, the assertion seems like extra work, as if I'm being over-cautious, so I wanted to simplify it:

declare function isT (x: unknown, y: unknown): (asserts x is T) & (y is T);
function f (x: unknown, y: unknown): asserts x is T;
function f (x: T, y: T | H) {
    if ( isT(x, y) ) {
        // ... x: T
        // ... y: T
    } else {
        // ... x: T
        // ... y: H
    }
}

Now, it's terse and straightforward, while retaining type-safety.
(I am not advocating any specific syntax for the aggregation/mixing)

I tried to get this to work with function overloads, but it wasn't happening.
Playground link


Related issues?
https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/40562
https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/34636

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 assertion-signature examples and the linked Playground reproduction, then read related issues 40562 and 34636. Determine the intended syntax and type-checking behavior for combining assertions, including the proposed tuple assertion; done means the language design and compatibility implications are resolved.

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
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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