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Narrowing for key type by in operator #43284

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Description

Suggestion

A k in v check should narrow type of k: K to K & keyof typeof v.

🔍 Search Terms

in operator narrowing

✅ 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

This code should compile due to narrowing on x:

const o = {foo: 1, bar: 2} as const;
const x: string = 'foo';
if (x in o) {
    const y: "foo" | "bar" = x; // OK
}

Currently it could be made with custom type guard

const in_ = <K extends string, O>(key: K, object: O): key is K & keyof O => key in object;
if (in_(x, o)) {
    const y: "foo" | "bar" = x; // OK
}

📃 Motivating Example

When validating a JSON with some kind of AST (or otherwise containing a tagged union) the only type we can have for a tag is a string.

const validateDisjointUnion = <O extends object>(
    nodeTypeValidators: { [K in keyof O]: (value: O[K]) => boolean },
    value: Json,
) => {
    if (typeof value !== 'object' || !('type' in value)) throw 42;
    const {type} = value;
    if (typeof type !== 'string' || !(type in nodeTypeValidators)) throw 42;
    // expression of type 'string' can't be used to index type '{ [K in keyof O]: (value: O[K]) => boolean; }'.
    return nodeTypeValidators[type](value);
}

💻 Use Cases

in_ solves the issue, but it involves a type guard. Type guards are "dangerous" in a sense that they can be used improperly (for example, !(key in object) would compile as well, but would lead to runtime error).

There is a related feature request to narrow type for second parameter of in operator. As far as I'm aware, there is no syntax to specify type of in_ that would guard on both parameters at the same time.

const guardBoth = <A, B>(a: A, b: B): (a is string) & (b is string) => { ... };

Edit. Not even

// A type predicate cannot reference a rest parameter.(1229)
const in_ = <K extends string, O, T>(...args: [K, O]): args is [K & keyof O, O & { [L in K]: unknown }] => args[0] in args[1];
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