microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Allow explicit fallthrough when noFallthroughCasesInSwitch is enabled

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#62,295 1 comment 3 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
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Description

### 🔍 Search Terms

fallthrough noFallthroughCasesInSwitch

### ✅ Viability Checklist

- [x] This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
- [x] This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
- [x] This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
- [x] This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, new syntax sugar for JS, etc.)
- [x] This isn't a request to add a new utility type: https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/No-New-Utility-Types
- [x] This feature would agree with the rest of our Design Goals: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/TypeScript-Design-Goals

### ⭐ Suggestion

```typescript
switch (...) {
case 'A':
doSomething();
// fallthrough - this will allow falling to next statement
case 'B':
doSomethingElse();
}
```

Instead of usage of `@ts-expect-error` this is nicely readable and intention is clearly visible in generated code.

### 📃 Motivating Example

Until now for `noFallthroughCasesInSwitch` is missing good way to allow falling through if needed. The only possible way `@ts-expect-error` is disabling not only fallthrough check, but also other checks which is not desired.

### 💻 Use Cases

1. What do you want to use this for? Because eslint rule no-fallthrough does not handle TS exhaustive match, I would like to you `noFallthroughCasesInSwitch` config rule
2. What shortcomings exist with current approaches?
- eslint can not be used, its `no-fallthrough` rule can not detect exhaustive match, so the following code is incorrectly reported by eslint:
```typescript
function transform(action: 'KEEP' | 'INVERSE', b: boolean): boolean {
switch (action) {
case 'KEEP':
switch (b) {
case true:
return true;
case false:
return false;
}
case 'INVERSE':
switch (b) {
case true:
return false;
case false:
return true;
}
}
}
```

- satisfying eslint is not possible e.g. by putting `break`, because TS will start report _Unreachable code detected_ and this can not be disabled by `@ts-expect-error`
- disabling reported case by `@ts-expect-error` is also not viable, because it is disabling all type checks, so e.g. in case `case something:` validation that `something` has the correct type is also disabled (and issue #19139 is still opened)
4. What workarounds are you using in the meantime? In my specific case, I had only one of these switches with exhaustive match, so I could put the statement as the last to not disable any check.

Implementation of #19139 would give me decent workaround and it is definitely more useful that this specific feature, but I believe both of them should be implemented.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

The issue names no files or tests; start by locating the noFallthroughCasesInSwitch diagnostic and the switch control-flow checks in the TypeScript compiler. Compare the proposed fallthrough marker with the existing @ts-expect-error and exhaustive-match cases, then add focused coverage showing intentional fallthrough remains type-checked.

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

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