Cascade type narrowing to child constants

[drakuno]

Suggestion

🔍 Search Terms

narrow child variable related

✅ 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

Constants that were assigned a child value of another variable or constant should have their type narrowed alongside their parent.

📃 Motivating Example

Consider the following code:

type SomeUnion = (
  | {type: "string", values: readonly string[]}
  | {type: "number", values: readonly number[]}
  | {type: "date", values: readonly Date[]}
);

function someFunction(union:SomeUnion, index:number): void {
  const value = union.values[index];
  if (union.type === "string") {
    union.values; // readonly string[]
    value; // string | number | Date
  }
}

In someFunction, TypeScript keeps the type of value as it was originally assigned (string | number | Date).

What if dev expects value to have been narrowed to string?

This already happens with the root keys of an object

type AnotherUnion = (
    | {type: "string", sibling: string, foo: {bar: string}}
    | {type: "number", sibling: number, foo: {bar: number}}
    | {type: "date", sibling: Date, foo: {bar: Date}}
);

function manualDestructure(union: AnotherUnion): void {
  const {type, sibling, foo: {bar}} = union;
  if (type === "string") {
    sibling; // string ✔️ 
    bar; // string | number | Date 😿 
  }
}

function argumentDestructure({type, sibling, foo: {bar}}: AnotherUnion): void {
  if (type === "string") {
    sibling; // string ✔️ 
    bar; // string | number | Date 😿 
  }
}

This is observable in both examples.

💻 Use Cases

Use case: Working with discriminated unions holding nested objects and arrays

To achieve such narrowing, one currently must adjust coding style. ie:

function adjustedScope(union:SomeUnion, index:number): void {
  if (union.type === "string") {
    const value = union.values[index];
    value; // string
  } else if (union.type === "number") {
    const value = union.values[index]; // 😭 
    value; // number
  }
}

// or

function typeAssertion(union:SomeUnion, index:number): void {
  const value = union.values[index];
  if (union.type === "string") {
    (value as string); // string
  } else if (union.type === "number") {
    (value as number); // number 😭 & risky?
  }
}