Interface type check with Typescript

Question

This question is the direct analogon to Class type check with TypeScript

I need to find out at runtime if a variable of type any implements an interface. Here\'s my

Answer 1

How about User-Defined Type Guards? https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/advanced-types.html

interface Bird {
    fly();
    layEggs();
}

interface Fish {
    swim();
    layEggs();
}

function isFish(pet: Fish | Bird): pet is Fish { //magic happens here
    return (<Fish>pet).swim !== undefined;
}

// Both calls to 'swim' and 'fly' are now okay.

if (isFish(pet)) {
    pet.swim();
}
else {
    pet.fly();
}

Answer 2

export interface ConfSteps {
    group: string;
    key: string;
    steps: string[];
}

private verify(): void {
    const obj = `{
      "group": "group",
      "key": "key",
      "steps": [],
      "stepsPlus": []
    } `;
    if (this.implementsObject<ConfSteps>(obj, ['group', 'key', 'steps'])) {
      console.log(`Implements ConfSteps: ${obj}`);
    }
  }

private objProperties: Array<string> = [];

private implementsObject<T>(obj: any, keys: (keyof T)[]): boolean {
    JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(obj), (key, value) => {
      this.objProperties.push(key);
    });
    for (const key of keys) {
      if (!this.objProperties.includes(key.toString())) {
        return false;
      }
    }
    this.objProperties = null;
    return true;
  }

Answer 3

Type guards in Typescript:

TS has type guards for this purpose. They define it in the following manner:

Some expression that performs a runtime check that guarantees the type in some scope.

This basically means that the TS compiler can narrow down the type to a more specific type when it has sufficient information. For example:

function foo (arg: number | string) {
    if (typeof arg === 'number') {
        // fine, type number has toFixed method
        arg.toFixed()
    } else {
        // Property 'toFixed' does not exist on type 'string'. Did you mean 'fixed'?
        arg.toFixed()
        // TSC can infer that the type is string because 
        // the possibility of type number is eliminated at the if statement
    }
}

To come back to your question, we can also apply this concept of type guards to objects in order to determine their type. To define a type guard for objects, we need to define a function whose return type is a type predicate. For example:

interface Dog {
    bark: () => void;
}

// The function isDog is a user defined type guard
// the return type: 'pet is Dog' is a type predicate, 
// it determines whether the object is a Dog
function isDog(pet: object): pet is Dog {
  return (pet as Dog).bark !== undefined;
}

const dog: any = {bark: () => {console.log('woof')}};

if (isDog(dog)) {
    // TS now knows that objects within this if statement are always type Dog
    // This is because the type guard isDog narrowed down the type to Dog
    dog.bark();
}

Answer 4

same as above where user-defined guards were used but this time with an arrow function predicate

interface A {
  member:string;
}

const check = (p: any): p is A => p.hasOwnProperty('member');

var foo: any = { member: "foobar" };
if (check(foo))
    alert(foo.member);

Answer 5

TypeGuards

interface MyInterfaced {
    x: number
}

function isMyInterfaced(arg: any): arg is MyInterfaced {
    return arg.x !== undefined;
}

if (isMyInterfaced(obj)) {
    (obj as MyInterfaced ).x;
}

Answer 6

It's now possible, I just released an enhanced version of the TypeScript compiler that provides full reflection capabilities. You can instantiate classes from their metadata objects, retrieve metadata from class constructors and inspect interface/classes at runtime. You can check it out here

Usage example:

In one of your typescript files, create an interface and a class that implements it like the following:

interface MyInterface {
    doSomething(what: string): number;
}

class MyClass implements MyInterface {
    counter = 0;

    doSomething(what: string): number {
        console.log('Doing ' + what);
        return this.counter++;
    }
}

now let's print some the list of implemented interfaces.

for (let classInterface of MyClass.getClass().implements) {
    console.log('Implemented interface: ' + classInterface.name)
}

compile with reflec-ts and launch it:

$ node main.js
Implemented interface: MyInterface
Member name: counter - member kind: number
Member name: doSomething - member kind: function

See reflection.d.ts for Interface meta-type details.

UPDATE: You can find a full working example here