What is a const cast in TypeScript?

By: Anthony Naddeo - (education)

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These links apply generally

Terminal

Notes

const casts are useful for telling the TypeScript compiler to infer the type of a value as something very specific, rather than something general. For example,

// note, `foo as const` is the same as `<const> foo`

let x = 10 as const;  // Type 10
let x2 = 10 ;  // Type number

let y = <const> [10, 20];  // Type readonly [10, 20]
let y2 = [10, 20];  // Type number[]

let z = { text: "hello"  } as const;  // Type { readonly text: "hello"  }
let z2 = { text: "hello"  };  // Type { text: string }

Use it if you have to create large objects that you want to be immutable (unable to change).

// Without a const cast, you need to specify `readonly` or use
// the convenient `Readonly` type Microsoft provides
const bigImmutableObject = {
    readonly a: 1,
    readonly b: 2,
    readonly c: {
        readonly c1: 3,
        readonly c2: 4
    }
}

// This seems nicer
const bigImmutableObject = {
    a: 1,
    b: 2,
    c: {
        c1: 3,
        c2: 4
    }
} as const

Further Learning

Here are some things to try if you want to dive deeper.

// Create a function that utilizes the extra information
// captured by the const cast.

interface MyType {
    // Decide what should go here
}

function doStuff(myType: MyType) {
    // Do something with it
}

// Use it
const myObject = {
    // should match MyType
} as const

doStuff(myObject) // should work

Topic Suggestions

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