Type a standard import with jsdoc only

[HolgerJeromin]

🔍 Search Terms

ecmascript module import jsdoc

✅ Viability Checklist

• 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 isn't a request to add a new utility type: https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/No-New-Utility-Types
• This feature would agree with the rest of our Design Goals: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/TypeScript-Design-Goals

⭐ Suggestion

Right now I can type an require call with

/**
 * @type {typeof import("./accounts").userAccount}
 */
var x = require("./accounts").userAccount;

from https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/jsdoc-supported-types.html#import-types

But when I my code uses an import statement
import { shortNameFromImport } from "textmodule";
I did not found a way to type that when the module resolution does found a hit.

@type in the line before can not be used because there is no let or const in this line.

/** @type {import('textmodule')} */
import { shortNameFromImport } from "textmodule";

And the normal way to type a variable with parenthesis can not be used because it is not valid JS code:

import { /** @type {import('textmodule')} */ (shortNameFromImport ) } from "textmodule";

Both variants without parenthesis do not work...

import { /** @type {import('textmodule')} */ shortNameFromImport } from "textmodule";

import { shortNameFromImport /** @type {import('textmodule')} */ } from "textmodule";

📃 Motivating Example

With typescript code I can do some magic with path in the tsconfig.json

"paths": {
  "textmodule": [ "./textmodule.ts" ]
},

But I wanted to have a JSDoc only solution.

💻 Use Cases

See above

[DanielRosenwasser]

Can you provide a little bit more information on why the actual module path isn't working correctly? Or why specifying paths isn't a reasonable solution?

[HolgerJeromin]

In my usecase I use importmap down the road so it is completely fine that typescript does not find the .ts/.d.ts/.js file by itself.
In fact I created a ts and js example for our library support of importmap generation.

I do not have a jsconfig.json but probably should.

This item was opened because I missed feature parity for typescript types compared to the jsdoc features.
It is a bit cumbersome to create a jsconfig.json, add paths and perhaps create a .d.ts file when I can not point TS to a ts/js file.

[DanielRosenwasser]

I'm a bit skeptical because we've been able to get pretty far with TS not having this capability outside of configuration - but I'll leave this open to feedback.