Allow function overloads with a varying parameter to unify, and inductively narrow the parameter when narrowing the return type

I don't really know how to word the title for this one or explain it well...but here's what I'm thinking: it would be nice to allow function overloads to unify, provided only one parameter and possibly the return type are different across each overload. Additionally, when narrowing the returned type, it should be able to inductively narrow the overloaded parameter's type accordingly within the same block. To hopefully explain this a little better, here's what I mean:

enum Types { Foo, Bar }
class Foo { foo: number; }
class Bar { bar: number; }
declare function foo(type: Types.Foo, length: number): Foo;
declare function foo(type: Types.Bar, length: number): Bar;

// This should be okay, with `result` inferred as `Foo | Bar`
const type: Types.Foo | Types.Bar = getType();
const result = foo(type, 1);

if (result instanceof Foo) {
    // str is inferred as Types.Foo here
} else {
    // str is inferred as Types.Bar here
}

In this case, if result is a Foo, str can only possibly be a "foo" through induction, and similarly result being a Bar and str being a "bar".

With #12883 also, this would also permit assertions to do compile-time type narrowing, without adding any new syntax or special casing of any particular identifier, hence fixing #12825 and #8655 simultaneously while remaining much more flexible:

declare function assert(cond: true, message: string): void;
declare function assert(cond: false, message: string): never;

I know this would likely be really hard to implement, but it would pay off. It helps that boolean is equivalent to true | false, "foo" is a subtype of string, E is equivalent to E.A | E.B | E.C where enum E {A, B, C}, etc., so much of the structural narrowing would allow this to apply to several other areas.

Note that this would specifically not allow more than one varying type to be unified, because it would be an M⨯N type implication, which would be unrealistic to infer in practice (you would already need length to be similarly guarded in theory):

declare function foo(type: "foo", length: 1): Foo;
declare function foo(type: "bar", length: 2): Foo;

let type: "foo" | "bar" = someType;
let length: 1 | 2 = someLength;
let result = foo(type, length); // Fail

Sorry if I did a really poor job explaining it (I don't really know the correct technical term for this, hence the detailed examples).

Yeah...I've picked up a few things on how partial types, readonly types, _.pluck, among others, were all fixed with two new primitives: index types and mapped types.

Oh, and this also would fix these two (among likely others):

Uninformative error message in Incorrect error message when overloaded function is called with invalid parameter #12313 (it could show all nearby overloads instead)
A missing overload in Some signatures should use union instead of overloads #5766 redundant with this proposal (similarly, lib.d.ts could really be simplified)

If type unions of functions are similarly unified, this would also fix #10620 (among likely others).

Similar induction with objects would also fix #12448, but that's beyond the scope of this proposal.

Duplicate #7294 ?

I believe these are two issues. 1. issues like String.split (#5766), where multiple overloads only differ in type of one parameter, and thus could not be called with a union type argument. and 2. calling signatures on a union type as (#7294).

In DefinitelyTyped, we have added a tslint rule to flag these cases as an error (see unifiedSignaturesRule). We could incorporate this into the compiler, and make it an error to have two signatures vary only by the type of one paramter, but this would be a breaking change.

just to clarify what i meant:

interface AcceptsStringAndNumber {
  push(a: string): void;
  push(a: number): void;
}

interface AcceptsString {
  push(a: string): void;
}

interface AcceptsNumber {
  push(a: number): void;
}

type AcceptsStringOrNumber = AcceptsString | AcceptsNumber;


var value: string | number;

var acceptsStringAndNumber: AcceptsStringAndNumber;
acceptsStringAndNumber.push(value); // Safe, but not allowed

var acceptsStringOrNumber: AcceptsStringOrNumber;
acceptsStringOrNumber.push(value); // Unsafe, and not allowed

Yes, that is the correct understanding of the current state. In particular, I'm proposing the safe one to be unified, not the unsafe one. (This is mod the return type half, which is much more complex)

…

On Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 18:09 Mohamed Hegazy ***@***.***> wrote: just to clarify what i meant: interface AcceptsStringAndNumber { push(a: string): void; push(a: number): void; } interface AcceptsString { push(a: string): void; } interface AcceptsNumber { push(a: number): void; } type AcceptsStringOrNumber = AcceptsString | AcceptsNumber; var value: string | number; var acceptsStringAndNumber: AcceptsStringAndNumber;acceptsStringAndNumber.push(value); // Safe, but not allowed var acceptsStringOrNumber: AcceptsStringOrNumber;acceptsStringOrNumber.push(value); // Unsafe, and not allowed — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#12885 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AERrBKiOF8R0PbxFVio-r3Tar-DoP78aks5rIHc5gaJpZM4LL5ym> .

Mohamed Hegazy (@mhegazy)

Mohamed Hegazy (@mhegazy)

To clarify the return type half and its related inference, it's this:

declare const stringOrNumber: string | number;

declare function convert(s: string): string;
declare function convert(n: number): number;

const result = convert(stringOrNumber);

if (typeof result === "string") {
    // stringOrNumber is type `string` here
} else {
    // stringOrNumber is type `number` here
}

related: #6160

Closing in favor of #13257, since that is a better thought out, more general superset of this.

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Allow function overloads with a varying parameter to unify, and inductively narrow the parameter when narrowing the return type #12885

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Allow function overloads with a varying parameter to unify, and inductively narrow the parameter when narrowing the return type #12885

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dead-claudia commented on Dec 13, 2016

RyanCavanaugh commented on Dec 13, 2016

mhegazy commented on Dec 14, 2016

mhegazy commented on Dec 14, 2016

dead-claudia commented on Dec 15, 2016

dead-claudia commented on Dec 27, 2016

falsandtru commented on Feb 4, 2017

dead-claudia commented on Apr 24, 2017

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