request.url undefined type, why? - node.js

Why request.url is defined as optional within nodejs types?
If a Request come to the http server should have the url by definition.
Why there is a question mark here?
url?: string;
https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/master/types/node/http.d.ts#L288

I don't know much about http/Request in node, but this seems to be the classic example of bad modeling (which is often found in the #types/node definitions, either due to how the types have been written or to the underlying design of the node.js API itself).
IncomingMessage is being modeled as a product type with optional keys instead of as a proper sum type - to distinguish the case of a client request from a server generated one. Comments about the invariants are then put above the single fields, making them useless in terms of TS / static type checking.
Reading just that definition, a better type def could have been:
interface ClientIncomingMessage extends stream.Readable {
// ... many other fields ...
url: string;
}
interface ServerIncomingMessage extends stream.Readable {
// ... many other fields ...
// no `url` fields here!
}
type IncomingMessage = ClientIncomingMessage | ServerIncomingMessage

Related

Enum attribute in lit/lit-element

We are trying to build a component with a property variant that should only be set to "primary" or "secondary" (enum). Currently, we are just declaring the attribute as a String, but we were wondering if there is a better way for handling enums? For example, should we validate somehow that the current value is part of the enum? Should we throw an error if not?
I asked this question on Slack and the answers I got lean towards declaring the property as String and use hasChanged() to display a warning in the console if the property value is invalid.
Standard HTML elements accept any string as attribute values and don't throw exceptions, so web components should probably behave the same way.
This all sounds reasonable to me.
If you're using TypeScript I'd recommend just using strings. You can use export type MyEnum = 'primary' | 'secondary' to declare it and then use #property() fooBar: MyEnum to get build time checking. You can use #ts-check to do this in plain JS with #type MyEnum too.
This works well if the enums are for component options or that map to server-side enums that will get validated again.
However, if you want to validate user input into enums or loop through them a lot this is less good. As the JS runs it has no visibility of the type. You need an object dictionary, something like:
const MyEnum = Object.freeze({
primary: 'primary',
secondary: 'secondary'
});
// Enforce type in TS
const value: keyof MyEnum;
// Validate
const validated = MyEnum[input.toLower()];
// Loop
for(const enumVal of Object.keys(MyEnum)) ...
// Or Convert to a different value type
const MyEnum = Object.freeze({
primary: 1,
secondary: 2
});
These are somewhat idiosyncratic. Again, if you're using TypeScript it has an enum keyword that compiles to something like this and I'd use that rather than rolling your own. Strings are the better option unless you need to validate, loop or convert the values.

Get keys from interface in a generic function

I need to get types from an interface by doing something like below, but I need to do it inside a function. Is there any way to do this using typescript generics?
I need the function to pass request bodies, along with an interface specifying their types and verify that the request body has the necessary items as well as correct format.
Note: I am using tsoa with express, so any other library or technique to properly validate request bodies would be fine.
interface someInterface {
foo: string;
bar: number;
}
const testObject: someInterface = req.body;
verifyObject(testObject);
/*
ensure foo and bar are of correct type, length etc.
(I will verify types, I just need a way of
getting the interface keys in a reusable function.)
*/
function verifyObject<T>(obj: T): void {
class temp implements T {} // does not work
const keys = Object.keys(new temp());
// use keys
}
You almost have it - made a generic function, so its param will be the object of the Interface, and accessing keys of the object is, well, you know it:
function verifyObject<T>(obj: T): void {
const keys = Object.keys(obj);
}
verifyObject<someInterface>(someObj);

TS: Cannot invoke an expression whose type lacks a call signature when defined dynamically, but it works

I'm still quite new to typescript, so please be gentle with me if I'm doing something with no sense for this technology!
The problem that I'm trying to solve is having a dynamic way to define how my application errors should be structured, but leaving to the users the faculty to enrich the messages.
So I tried to create this logic in a module that could be extended easily from the application, but I'm currently facing the problem:
Error:(35, 18) TS2349: Cannot invoke an expression whose type lacks a call signature. Type 'ErrorMessage' has no compatible call signatures.
What I thought it was a good idea (but please tell me if I'm wrong), was to use a register and a map to have the possibility to extend this mapping every time I want. So I created my ErrorMessage interface to be like the following:
export interface ErrorMessage {
actionMessage: string;
actionSubject: string;
originalErrorMessage?: string;
toString: () => string;
}
and a register for these, called ErrorResponseRegister, as it follows:
export enum defaultErrors {
ExceptionA = 'ExceptionA',
ExceptionB = 'ExceptionB',
}
export class ErrorResponseRegister {
private mapping: Map<string, ErrorMessage>;
constructor() {
this.mapping = new Map()
.set(defaultErrors.ExceptionA, exceptionAErrorMessage)
.set(defaultErrors.ExceptionB, exceptionBErrorMessage);
}
}
So at the end, every ErrorMessage function should look like:
export function exceptionAErrorMessage(originalErrorMessage?: string): ErrorMessage {
return {
enrichment1: "Something happened",
enrichment2: "in the application core",
originalErrorMessage: originalErrorMessage,
toString(): string {
return `${this.enrichment1} ${this.enrichment2}. Original error message: ${originalErrorMessage}`;
},
};
}
Please note I haven't used classes for this ones, as it doesn't really need to be instantiated
and I can have a bunch of them where the toString() method can vary. I just want to enforce the errors should have an enrichment1 and enrichment2 that highlight the problem in a better way for not-technical people.
So, now, back to code. When I'm trying to use the exceptionAErrorMessage statically, I can't see any problem:
console.log(exceptionAErrorMessage(originalErrorMessage).toString())
But when I try dynamically, using the map defined in the ErrorResponseRegister, something weird happens:
// In ErrorResponseRegister
public buildFor(errorType: string, originalErrorMessage?: string): Error {
const errorMessageBuilder = this.mapping.get(errorType);
if (errorMessageBuilder) {
return errorMessageBuilder(originalErrorMessage).toString();
}
return "undefined - do something else";
}
The code works as expected, the error returned is in the right format, so the toString function is executed correctly.
BUT, the following error appears in the IDE:
Error:(32, 18) TS2349: Cannot invoke an expression whose type lacks a call signature. Type 'ErrorMessage' has no compatible call signatures.
The line that causes the problem is
errorMessageBuilder(originalPosErrorMessage).toString()
Can someone help me to understand what I'm doing wrong?
It looks like your problem is you've mistyped mapping... it doesn't hold ErrorMessage values; it holds (x?: string)=>ErrorMessage values:
private mapping: Map<string, (x?: string) => ErrorMessage>;
What's unfortunate is that you initialize this variable via new Map().set(...) instead of the using an iterable constructor argument.
The former returns a Map<any, any> which is trivially assignable to mapping despite the mistyping. That is, you ran smack into this known issue where the standard library's typings for the no-argument Map constructor signature produces Map<any, any> which suppresses all kinds of otherwise useful error messages. Perhaps that will be fixed one day, but for now I'd suggest instead that you use the iterable constructor argument, whose type signature declaration will infer reasonable types for the keys/values:
constructor() {
this.mapping = new Map([
[defaultErrors.ExceptionA, exceptionAErrorMessage],
[defaultErrors.ExceptionB, exceptionBErrorMessage]
]); // inferred as Map<defaultErrors, (orig?: string)=>ErrorMessage>
}
If you had done so, it would have flagged the assignment as an error with your original typing for mapping (e.g., Type 'Map<defaultErrors, (originalErrorMessage?: string | undefined) => ErrorMessage>' is not assignable to type 'Map<string, ErrorMessage>'.) Oh well!
Once you make those changes, things should behave more reasonably for you. Hope that helps; good luck!
Link to code

How do I improve this object design in Typescript?

I have created a class in Typescript that implements a simple stream (FRP). Now I want to extend it with client side functionality (streams of events). To illustrate my problem, here is some pseudo-code:
class Stream<T> {
map<U>(f: (value: T) => U): Stream<U> {
// Creates a new Stream instance that maps the values.
}
// Quite a few other functions that return new instances.
}
This class can be used both on the server and on the client. For the client side, I created a class that extends this one:
class ClientStream<T> extends Stream<T> {
watch(events: string, selector: string): Stream<Event> {
// Creates a new ClientStream instance
}
}
Now the ClientStream class knows about map but the Stream class doesn't know about watch. To circumvent this, functions call a factory method.
protected create<U>(.....): Stream<U> {
return new Stream<U>(.....)
}
The ClientStream class overrides this function to return ClientStream instances. However, the compiler complains that ClientStream.map returns a Stream, not a ClientStream. That can be 'solved' using a cast, but besides being ugly it prevents chaining.
Example code that exhibits this problem:
class Stream {
protected create(): Stream {
return new Stream()
}
map() {
return this.create()
}
}
class ClientStream extends Stream {
protected create(): ClientStream {
return new ClientStream()
}
watch() {
return this.create()
}
}
let s = new ClientStream().map().watch()
This does not compile because according to the compiler, the stream returned from map is not a ClientStream: error TS2339: Property 'watch' does not exist on type 'Stream'.
I don't really like this pattern, but I have no other solution that is more elegant. Things I've thought about:
Use composition (decorator). Not really an option given the number of methods I would have to proxy through. And I want to be able to add methods to Stream later without having to worry about ClientStream.
Mix Stream into ClientStream. More or less the same problem, ClientStream has to know the signatures of the functions that are going to be mixed in (or not? Please tell).
Merge these classes into one. This is a last resort, the watch function has no business being on the server.
Do you have a better (more elegant) solution? If you have an idea that gets closer to a more functional style, I'd be happy to hear about it. Thanks!
What you're trying to do is called F-bounded polymorphism.
In TypeScript this is done via the this keyword. Take a look at Typescript's documentation for polymorphic this types. If you follow the documentation, you should be able to implement what you want :-)
Actually, just make sure that you're returning this in your member methods and you should be fine!

Optional arguments on interface and class can conflict

I have just come across an interesting gotcha where optional arguments on an interface and the implementing class can conflict.
I found this out the hard way (school boy error) whilst experimenting. You cannot spot it in the debugger and I assumed it was me messing up the dependency injection.
I'm guessing this is so an alternative interface can give a differing view on what default behaviour should be?
Is there a compiler warning or style cop rule to help point this out?
public interface MyInterface
{
MyStuff Get(bool eagerLoad = true); //this overrules the implementation.
}
public class MyClass : MyInterface
{
public MyStuff Get(bool eagerLoad = false) //will still be true
{
//stuff
}
}
Remember default arguments are a compile-time feature. The compiler picks up the default argument based on the static type of the reference in question and inserts the appropriate default argument. I.e. if you reference is of the interface type you get one behavior but if the reference is of the class type you get the other in your case.

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