Proposal: String enums

[jbondc]

A string enum is inferred by looking at the constant value of the initializer of its first member:

enum stringsInferred {
   a = "a",
   b, // "b"
   c  // "c"
}

Or it is declared using a string index:

enum stringsDeclared {
   [prop: string] : string;
   a, // "a"
   B, // "B"
   c  // "c"
}

The auto initialized value on an enum is its property name.

Inferred enum special case

enum stringsLowerCase {
   Shoes = "shoes", // If the first member has lowercase chars, then lowercase all other member values
   Boots, // "boots"
   Feet  // "feet"
}

[mariusschulz]

👍

We should definitely be able to use enums with string values. Even a const enum with compile-time string literals (that are always safe to inline) would be helpful already, mainly for …

• restricting variables to a set of known string values, and
• avoiding misspellings.

I'm not sure the automagical upper- and lowercasing described underneath Inferred enum special cases is such a good idea, though. I'd rather spell all cases exactly like they should be stringified:

enum stringsUpperCase {
   Shoes = "SHOES",  // "SHOES"
   BOOTS,            // "BOOTS"
   Feet              // "Feet"
}

[dead-claudia]

Can this be generalized to other types (with the constraint that all types must be initialized - no value can be inferred)?

[dead-claudia]

@jbondc

I agree, and this could be the other special case (where value inference already exists for numbers). Also, FWIW, I made a post on that bug with a few more specific suggestions IIRC. It just wasn't on the top of my mind at the time.

[dead-claudia]

@jbondc

And I feel this syntax is a little repetitive in the [prop: string]: string part. Couldn't the syntax be modified to have the type after the enum name, instead of in the body? Maybe this syntax, to borrow your example?

enum strings : string {
   Shoes,           // "Shoes"
   BOOTS,            // "BOOTS"
   Feet              // "Feet"
}

[dead-claudia]

@jbondc Any advantages to that over my recent proposal? I don't think that regex-based solution is really that helpful in practice. All that regex does there is enforce type names, something better left to a linter as opposed to the main compiler. And it looks a little out of place compared to the enum entries. And as you said in the other thread, it will complicate the parser and compiler a little, likely more than it should.

And as for extending enums, that's not very good practice, anyways. And it's generally not possible among other TypeScript users. Mine allows for such extensions, but you can only truly extend them in the same module or private namespace declaration, unless you're writing a definition file. That's because of the module wrapper emitted around every namespace declaration. So, for most purposes, you can't really extend them in the first place. Also, the spec currently requires that same-named declarations within the same root to add properties to the same enum.

[lazdmx]

👍 for string (const) enums

[rotemdan]

My current workaround looks something like this (this is a real-world, copy-and-paste code example):

class Task {
  ..
  static State = { 
    Unstarted: "Unstarted", 
    Started: "Started", 
    Completed: "Completed", 
    Faulted: "Faulted", 
    Canceled: "Canceled"
  }
}

let task = new Task();
..
if (task.state === Task.State.Completed) // The declared type of task.state is "string" here.
  console.log("Done!");

This also gives a nice encapsulation into the class type that I find appealing (through the static modifier).

Replicating this through enum would require several different enhancements. I will consider posting a separate proposal for class encapsulated enums if that hasn't been proposed before.

I think having string enums would be very useful (maybe "necessary" should be the right word here). Automatic inferring of things like letters would be problematic because of locale and language issues (every language would have its own letters and ordering). Automatic lowercasing/uppercasing would also be impacted from similar issues (every language has different lower/uppercasing rules), and seems to me like a minor detail/enhancement at this point.

[mariusschulz]

Maybe the string keyword would lend itself to be included in the declaration:

string enum PromiseState {
    Pending,
    Fulfilled,
    Rejected
}

In the above example, the string values of the cases would equal their names. They could be overwritten like this:

string enum PromiseState {
    Pending = "pending",
    Fulfilled = "fulfilled",
    Rejected = "rejected"
}

[rotemdan]

This may turn out a bit long for a const enum that is also exported:

export const string enum PromiseState {
    Pending,
    Fulfilled,
    Rejected
}

So maybe an alternative using some sort of a psuedo-generic type parameter?

export const enum PromiseState<string> {
    Pending,
    Fulfilled,
    Rejected
}

Due to issues with different languages, alphabets, and locales it would be difficult to apply a correct conversion to lowercase/uppercase in many languages other than English. So just preserving the original casing and allowing custom ones through = seems like a reasonable compromise.