Declare properties with a separate public and private types.

[TheCymaera]

Suggestion

🔍 Search Terms

Separate public and private type
Privately typed properties
Public and private types
Supertype properties
Subtype properties

✅ Viability Checklist

My suggestion meets these guidelines:

• This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
• This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
• This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
• This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, new syntax sugar for JS, etc.)
• This feature would agree with the rest of TypeScript's Design Goals.

⭐ Suggestion

Let classes declare properties with separate public and private types.

📃 Motivating Example

class Stack<T> {
    // privately, the property is mutable
    private data: T[] = [];
    
    // publicly, the property is immutable.
    public readonly data: readonly T[];
    
    push(item: T) {
        // private type is mutable
        this.data.push(item);
    }
}

stack.data.push("foo") // Not allowed; public type is immutable

Current alternatives are verbose and/or have limitations:

Type assertion:

class Stack<T> {
    public readonly data: readonly T[];
    push(item: T) {
        (this.data as T[]).push(item);
    }

    // manually asset type every time inside class body
}

Multiple properties:

class Stack<T> {
    readonly #data: T[] = []; // cannot be re-assigned
    readonly data = this.#data as readonly T[];

    // use private property #data inside class body
}

Accessors:

class Stack<T> {
    #data: T[] = [];
    get data() {
        return this.#data as readonly T[];
    }

    // use private property #data inside class body
}

💻 Use Cases

Prevent re-assignment from outside the class body.
Export a live array/set/map but prevent mutation from outside the class body.
Export superclass properties but use subclass-methods internally.

[MartinJohns]

Duplicate of #37487.

[TheCymaera]

Duplicate of #37487.

There are similar use cases but this is not a duplicate.

That suggestion does not permit using subtypes, such as making the array immutable like in my example.

[MartinJohns]

It's in the comments.

[TheCymaera]

It's in the comments.

Ah, I see.