winglang / winglang/wing

improve error message when accessing an optional map property

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✨ enhancement 🛠️ compiler good first issue
Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

Feature Spec

Assuming we have an optional Map, and we want to access one of its properties,
optional_map.get("property") (or even optional_map?.get("property")) will throw the following error: "property access unsupported on type Map?"
this error message might not be clear enough to guide the user on how to fix the error.

(At the end I solved it this way:

let m = optional_map ?? {property: "x"};
m.get("property");

)

Use Cases

accessing a property on an optional map

Implementation Notes

We will also support optional_map?.property in the future

Component

Language Design

Community Note

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Contributor guide

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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

No file, test, or entry point is named. Start by locating the compiler diagnostic for property access on an optional Map, then define a clearer correction-oriented message for the shown access patterns and verify that the optional-map examples produce it.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
compilers
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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