How to check the type is enum or not in typescript

Question

I have a string enum type like:

export enum UserRole {
admin = "admin",
active = "active",
blocked = "blocked"
}

I

Answer 1

I usually stay away from enums because they one of those few TypeScript features that violate TypeScript's own language design goals: they are not part of JavaScript yet they compile to JavaScript. This means that we can't easily point to a JavaScript spec for what happens at runtime.

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Anyway, it seems like you are interested in the runtime behavior of enums and not necessarily their type system behavior, so in what follows I will worry about answering your question at runtime and not in the compiler. At runtime, an enum will just be an object with keys and values. And as long as you're using a string enum, the keys and values will be identical to the keys and values you set.

(If you're using a numeric enum there will also be reverse mappings where the value is added as a key and the key is added as a value. This is extra confusing but doesn't seem to apply to your question so I'll avoid talking about it unless pressed for more details.)

You've set the keys and values of your enum to be identical, which leads to an ambiguity I'd like to avoid. I'm going to redefine UserRole like this:

enum UserRole {
    ADMIN = "admin",
    ACTIVE = "active",
    BLOCKED = "blocked",
}

Now we can show the difference between the question "is this string a key of the enum" and "is this string a value of the enum". Anyway, assuming we have a string role and we want to see if it's a key of the enum, we can do this:

const roleIsEnumKey = role in UserRole;
console.log("role " + role + (roleIsEnumKey ? " IS " : " IS NOT ") + "a key in UserRole");

And if we want to see if it's a value of the enum, we can do this:

const roleIsEnumValue = (Object.values(UserRole) as string[]).includes(role);
console.log("role " + role + (roleIsEnumValue ? " IS " : " IS NOT ") + "a value in UserRole");

assuming you are using a version of JS with Object.values() and Array.prototype.includes(). If not, you can iterate over Object.keys() or any other method you want.

Let's see if it works:

check(JSON.stringify({ role: "ADMIN" }));
// role ADMIN IS a key in UserRole 
// role ADMIN IS NOT a value in UserRole

check(JSON.stringify({ role: "admin" }));
// role admin IS NOT a key in UserRole 
// role admin IS a value in UserRole 

check(JSON.stringify({ role: "random" }));
// role random IS NOT a key in UserRole
// role random IS NOT a value in UserRole 

Looks good. The point is, at runtime the enum is just an object, and you can check its keys and values the way you would with any object.

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Playground link