Merge Two Interfaces
Seeking confirmation or clarification
If I have two interfaces. What is the "proper" way to create a merge of those two interfaces?
IFoo {
// some stuff
}
IBar {
// some stuff
}
IFooBar extends IFoo, IBar {
// Empty
}
It works but it feels weird, like I am doing it wrong with the empty IFooBar.
Am I doing this correctly?
I also noticed that this also works:
type IFooBar = IFoo & IBar;
I have an illogical aversion to using type
yet, it is much cleaner.
This article explains the relation between interfaces and type aliases very well, this part is focused on small differences between them.
Both
interface IFooBar extends IFoo, IBar {}
and
type IFooBar = IFoo & IBar;
are common ways to do this and will behave identically in most cases. Since type
takes less characters to type, it could be chosen for that reason.
The inconsistency that is caused by mixed interface
and type
shouldn't be a problem; they are just suitable features to achieve the goal. If const BarClass = FooClass
does the job, class BarClass extends FooClass {}
shouldn't be preferred just because its consistently uses class
everywhere (this example is used for illustrative purposes, there's a considerable difference between these approaches).
Even though interface
and type
can behave similarly, there is a difference in case of merged interface (also covered in linked article). This will work:
interface FooBar extends IFoo, IBar {}
class FooBar { ... }
And this will cause type error:
type FooBar = IFoo & IBar;
class FooBar { ... }
If you're wanting to merge 2 interfaces which contain members more than 1 level deep:
export interface TypeOne {
one: {
two: {
hello: string;
}[]
}
}
export type TypeTwo = {
one: {
two: {
world: string;
}[]
}
} & TypeOne;
const x: TypeTwo;
x.one.two[0]. // autocompletes options are 'hello' / 'world'