Is TypeScript gradually typed? Part 1

If you haven't heard already, there's a new language named TypeScript from Microsoft, designed by Anders Hejlsberg and several others, including a recent alumni from my research group named Jonathan Turner. The TypeScript language extends JavaScript with features that are intended to help with large-scale programming such as optional static type checking, classes, interfaces, and modules. In this post I'll try to characterize what optional static typing means for TypeScript. There are a large number of possible design decisions regarding optional static typing, so the characterization is non-trivial. When discussing types, it's often easy to fixate on the static semantics, that is, how the type checker should behave, but we'll also need to look at the dynamic semantics of TypeScript in Part 2 of this post. The punch line will be that TypeScript is a gradually-typed language, but only to level 1. (I'll define levels that go from 1 to 3 and discuss their pros and cons.)

Static Semantics (Type System)

TypeScript has an any type. Variables and fields of this type can store any type of value. TypeScript has function types that describe the types of the parameters and return types of a function and the way in which the any type and function types interact is closely related to the design I wrote about in Gradual Typing for Functional Languages, SFP 2006. Further, TypeScript has object types to describe the types of fields and methods within an object. The way in which the any type and the object types behave in TypeScript is closely related to the system I described in Gradual Typing for Objects, ECOOP 2007.

The basic feature of any is that you can implicitly convert from any type to any and you can implicitly convert from any to any other type. For example, the following is a well-typed program in TypeScript that demonstrates converting from type string to type any and back to string.

var answer : string = "42";
var a : any = answer;
var the_answer : string = a;
document.body.innerHTML = the_answer;

On the other hand, a gradual type system acts like a static type system when the any type is not involved. For example, the following program tries to implicitly convert from a number to a string, so the type system rejects this program.

var answer : number = 42;
var the_answer : string = answer;

Next, let's look at how any and function types interact. TypeScript uses structural typing for function types, which means that whether you can convert from one function type to another depends on the parts of the function type. The parts are the parameter and the return types. Consider the following example, in which a function of type (string)=>string is implicitly converted to (any)=>string and then to (any)=>any.

function f(x:string):string { return x; }
var g : (any)=>string = f;
var h : any = g;
document.body.innerHTML = h("42");

The first conversion is interesting because, if g is called with an argument of type any, then the argument needs to be implicitly converted to the string that f expects. This is an implicit down-cast, and doesn't follow the contra-variance rule for functions that one sees in the subtyping rules for object-oriented languages. Indeed, in a gradually typed system, assignment compatibility is co-variant in the parameter type of a function, at least, with respect to the any type. The second conversion, from (any)=>string to any is not so surprising, it's just up-casting from (any)=>string to any. Interestingly, there is a third implicit conversion in this program. Can you see it? It's in the call to h. The fact that we're calling h implies that h needs to be a function (or something callable), so there's essentially an implicit conversion here from any to (string)=>any.

Next let's look at implicit conversions involving object types. Like function types, object types are also structural. Consider the following well-typed program in TypeScript, in which an object of type {x:number; y:any} is implicitly converted to {x:any; y:string}, then {x:number}, and finally to any.

var o : {x:number; y:any;} = {x:1, y:"42"};
var p : {x:any; y:string;} = o;
var q : {x:number;} = p;
var r : any = p;
document.body.innerHTML = r.y;

The assignment of o to p shows structural changes within an object type, both to and from any. The next conversion, to {x:number}, shows that the type system allows implicit narrowing of object types. Thus, the rules governing implicit conversion are quite close to the consistent-subtyping relation described in Gradual Typing for Objects. This relation combines the consistency relation that governs the static behavior of any (sometimes called compatibility) with the traditional subtyping relation of structural type systems that allows the implicit narrowing of object types. Getting back to the above example, similar to the function call at type any, TypeScript allows member access on things of type any.

The next example is not well-typed in TypeScript.

var o : {x:number; y:any; } = {x:1, y:"42"};
var q : {x:number;} = o;
var r : {x:number; y:any;} = q;
document.body.innerHTML = r.y;

The tsc compiler complains that

example.ts(3,29): Cannot convert '{ x: number; }' 
    to '{ x: number; y: any; }':
Type '{ x: number; }' is missing property 'y'
    from type '{ x: number; y: any; }'

which shows the TypeScript doesn't allow implicit widening (again in line with the consistent-subtyping relation).

To wrap up the discussion of the static semantics, let's take a look at the interaction between function types (arrows) and object types. To quote John Reynolds by way of Olivier Danvy, "As usual, something funny happens at the left of the arrow". I'm curious to see whether object narrowing is contra-variant in the parameters of function types, which is what I'd expect based on traditional subtyping relations and based on wanting a consistent design with respect to not allowing implicit widening. Consider the following example.

function f(o: {x:number;}):string { return "42"; };
var g : (o: {x:number; y:number;})=>string = f;
var h : (o: {x:number;})=>string = g;
document.body.innerHTML = h({x:1,y:2});

The conversion from f to g should be OK, because it only requires an argument of type {x:number; y:number;} to be up-cast (narrowed) to {x:number;}. However, the conversion from g to h should not be OK because it requires an argument of type {x:number;} to be implicitly down-cast (widened) to {x:number; y:number;}. Surprisingly, the tsc compiler does not give a type error for the above example! So what I said above about TypeScript disallowing implicit widening is not quite true. In many cases it disallows widening, but here we see an exception to the rule. I don't like exceptions in language design because they increase the complexity of the language. So on this one point, TypeScript differs from the design in Gradual Typing for Objects. Perhaps Jonathan can comment on whether this difference was intentional or accidental.