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README.md

Reconstructing TypeScript

Synthesizing types: computing types from expressions going bottom-up from the AST leaves to the tree root.

The AST is a tree where

  • each expression is a node in the tree
  • each with its subexpressions as children
  • the leaves are atomic expressions like literal values.

With that in mind, we can compute a new type based on the expressions

  • for an atomic expression, return the corresponding type: "foo" has type string, true has type boolean, and so on; and
  • for a compound expression, find the types of its subexpressions, then combine them according to the top-level operation of the expression.
type A = { x: 7; y: 9 };
  • x is number
  • y is number

So type A is { x: number, y: number }.

Subtyping: a type A is a subtype of a type B when all the operations supported on B are also supported on A.

  • reflexive: A is a subtype of A, for any type A
  • transitive: if A is a subtype of B and B is a subtype of C then A is a subtype of C, for any types A, B, and C.
type A = { x: number; y: number };

Objects like this are compatible:

{ x: number, y: number }
{ x: number, y: number, z: number }
{ x: number, y: number, foo: string }

Because they support the same operations (x and y as number).

Objects like this aren't:

{ x: number, y: string }
{ x: number }
boolean

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