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Change in generic behavior between 3.0.1 and >=3.1.1 #27895

Description

TypeScript Version: 3.2.0-dev.20181011
This code worked in 3.0.1, and is broken >=3.1.1.

Search Terms:
"is not assignable to type"

Code

export interface Entity {
    id: number | string;
}

export type IdOf<E extends Entity> = E['id'];

export interface EntityState<E extends Entity> {
    ids: IdOf<E>[];
    entities: { [key: string]: E, [key: number]: E };
}


export function getAllEntities<E extends Entity>(state: EntityState<E>): E[] {
    const { ids, entities } = state;
    return ids.map(id => entities[id]);
}

export function getEntity<E extends Entity>(id: IdOf<E>, state: EntityState<E>): E | undefined {
    const { ids, entities } = state;

    if (!ids.includes(id)) {
        return undefined;
    }

    return entities[id];
}

For completeness, I'll just mention that I intend for users to create subinterfaces of Entity and EntityState for their domain types (like @ngrx/entity), overriding id to be a more restrictive type. This is why the IdOf type is important. E.g.,

interface Task extends Entity {
    id: string;
    due: Date;
    title: string;
}

interface TaskState extends EntityState<Task> {
    // Inherits EntityState#ids as string[]
    currentTask?: string;
}

Expected behavior:
The code compiles without error.

Actual behavior:

BUILD ERROR
projects/entity/src/lib/entity-state.utils.ts(13,5): error TS2322: Type '{ [key: string]: E; [key: number]: E; }[E["id"]][]' is not assignable to type 'E[]'.
  Type '{ [key: string]: E; [key: number]: E; }[E["id"]]' is not assignable to type 'E'.
    Type 'Entity' is not assignable to type 'E'.
projects/entity/src/lib/entity-state.utils.ts(23,5): error TS2322: Type '{ [key: string]: E; [key: number]: E; }[E["id"]]' is not assignable to type 'E | undefined'.
  Type 'Entity' is not assignable to type 'E'.
    Type '{ [key: string]: E; [key: number]: E; }[E["id"]]' is not assignable to type 'E'.
      Type 'Entity' is not assignable to type 'E'.

Playground Link:
Playground Link

Related Issues:
I did not find any that seemed similar, but I'm also unsure what the actual underlying problem is. I did ask on StackOverflow, and they suggested I ask here.

Activity

  1. mattmccutchen commented on Oct 14, 2018

    @mattmccutchen
    Contributor

    This was caused by #26698. The old behavior to check assignability of the indexed access type { [key: string]: E; [key: number]: E; }[E["id"]] to E was to take the base constraint of both the object type and the index type, which gave { [key: string]: E; [key: number]: E; }[string | number] = E, which worked. The new behavior takes the constraint of the object type, and if there isn't one, jumps straight to the base constraint of the whole indexed access type, so it goes to Entity and misses E.

  2. chrisbouchard commented on Oct 14, 2018

    @chrisbouchard
    Author

    Is this considered a regression? Or, if this is the intended new behavior, is there a suggested workaround?

  3. mattmccutchen commented on Oct 14, 2018

    @mattmccutchen
    Contributor

    I'd call it a regression, but it's not my opinion that matters.

    A workaround is to upcast id to string | number:

    export function getAllEntities<E extends Entity>(state: EntityState<E>): E[] {
        const { ids, entities } = state;
        const ids2: (string | number)[] = ids;
        return ids2.map(id => entities[id]);
    }
    
    export function getEntity<E extends Entity>(id: IdOf<E>, state: EntityState<E>): E | undefined {
        const { ids, entities } = state;
    
        if (!ids.includes(id)) {
            return undefined;
        }
    
        const id2: string | number = id;
        return entities[id2];
    }
  4. locked as resolved and limited conversation to collaborators on Oct 21, 2025
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BugA bug in TypeScriptDomain: Indexed Access TypesThe issue relates to accessing subtypes via index accessFixedA PR has been merged for this issue

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