This is TypeScript transformer generating Type objects that are working at runtime, providing metadata about types such as list of properties and their types, list of constructors and their parameters and their types and so on.

With working runtime generic types!

Visit Github repository for more information

Simple Example

import { getType, Type } from "tst-reflect";

function printClassInfo<TType>()
{
    const type: Type = getType<TType>(); // <<== get type of generic TType

    console.log(type.name); // > Animal
    console.log(type.fullName); // > @@this/index.ts:Animal#21869

    console.log(type.getProperties().map(p => `${p.name}: ${p.type.name}`).join("\n")); // > name: string
    console.log(type.getMethods().map(m => `${m.name}(): ${m.returnType.name}`).join("\n")); // > makeSound(): string

    return type.name;
}

abstract class Animal
{
    private name: string;
    abstract makeSound(): string;
}

printClassInfo<Animal>();

How to Start

1. Install packages.

npm i tst-reflect && npm i tst-reflect-transformer -D

2. In order to use transformer plugin you need TypeScript compiler which supports plugins eg. package ttypescript or you can use TypeScript compiler API manually.

npm i ttypescript -D

3. Add transformer to tsconfig.json

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        // your options...

        // ADD THIS!
        "plugins": [
            {
                "transform": "tst-reflect-transformer"
            }
        ]
    }
}

4. Now just transpile your code by ttsc instead of tsc

npx ttsc

Using Webpack

Modify your webpack config. Use options.compiler of ts-loader to set ttypescript compiler.

({
    test: /\.(ts|tsx)$/,
    loader: require.resolve("ts-loader"),
    options: {
        compiler: "ttypescript"
    }
})

Using Parcel

Install Parcel plugin.

npm i parcel-plugin-ttypescript

Using Rollup

Install Rollup plugin

npm i rollup-plugin-typescript2

and modify your rollup config.

import ttypescript from "ttypescript";
import tsPlugin from "rollup-plugin-typescript2";

export default {
    // your options...
    
    plugins: [
        // ADD THIS!
        tsPlugin({
            typescript: ttypescript
        })
    ]
}

Using ts-node

Modify your tsconfig.json.

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        // your options...

        "plugins": [
            {
                "transform": "tst-reflect-transformer"
            }
        ]
    },
    
    // ADD THIS!
    "ts-node": {
        // This can be omitted when using ts-patch
        "compiler": "ttypescript"
    },
}

Obtaining Type

Runtime package (tst-reflect) contains two main exports, getType<T>() function and Type class. To get Type instance, you have to call getType<InterfaceOrClassOrSomeType>().

How does it work

Transformer looks for all calls of getType<T>() and replace those calls by Type retrieving logic. It generates object literals describing referred types and instances of Type are created from those objects.

Metadata

Mentioned object literals describing types are called metadata. Default behavior collect metadata of all used types and generate file metadata.lib.js in project root ( location of tsconfig.json).

Metadata library file looks like this:

var {getType} = require("tst-reflect");
getType({
    k: 5,
    props: [{n: "foo", t: getType({n: "string", k: 2})}, {
        n: "bar",
        t: getType({k: 3, types: [getType({k: 6, v: "a"}), getType({k: 6, v: "b"})], union: true, inter: false})
    }]
}, 22974);
getType({k: 5, props: [{n: "foo", t: getType({n: "string", k: 2})}, {n: "bar", t: getType({n: "string", k: 2})}]}, 22969);
getType({
    n: "SomeType",
    fn: "..\\logger.ts:SomeType",
    props: [{n: "array", t: getType({k: 4, n: "Array", args: [getType(22969)]})}],
    ctors: [{params: []}],
    k: 1,
    ctor: () => SomeType
}, 22965);
getType({
    n: "Foo",
    fn: "..\\logger.ts:Foo",
    props: [{n: "prop", t: getType({n: "number", k: 2})}],
    ctors: [{params: [{n: "prop", t: getType({n: "number", k: 2})}]}],
    k: 1,
    ctor: () => Foo
}, 22976);

Configuration

Configuration [wiki]

More Information

More information in README in the root repository folder.

Or check examples or dev scripts we use to test things.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT license.