Object Types

Typing different kinds of objects

Objects are used many different ways in JavaScript. There’s a number of different ways to type them in order to support all the different use cases.

Object type syntax

Object types try to match the syntax for objects in JavaScript as much as possible. Using curly braces {} and name-value pairs using a colon : split by commas ,.

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// @flow
var obj1: { foo: boolean } = { foo: true };
var obj2: {
  foo: number,
  bar: boolean,
  baz: string,
} = {
  foo: 1,
  bar: true,
  baz: 'three',
};

Note: Previously object types used semicolons ; for splitting name-value pairs. While the syntax is still valid, you should use commas ,.

Optional object type properties

In JavaScript, accessing a property that doesn’t exist evaluates to undefined. This is a common source of errors in JavaScript programs, so Flow turns these into type errors.

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// @flow
var obj = { foo: "bar" };
// $ExpectError
obj.bar; // Error!
property `bar` Property not found in object literal

If you have an object that sometimes does not have a property you can make it an optional property by adding a question mark ? after the property name in the object type.

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// @flow
var obj: { foo?: boolean } = {};

obj.foo = true;    // Works!
// $ExpectError
obj.foo = 'hello'; // Error!
string This type is incompatible with boolean

In addition to their set value type, these optional properties can either be void or omitted altogether. However, they cannot be null.

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// @flow
function acceptsObject(value: { foo?: string }) {
  // ...
}

acceptsObject({ foo: "bar" });     // Works!
acceptsObject({ foo: undefined }); // Works!
// $ExpectError
acceptsObject({ foo: null });      // Error!
acceptsObject({});                 // Works!
object literal This type is incompatible with the expected param type of object type

Object type inference

Flow can infer the type of object literals in two different ways depending on how they are used.

Sealed objects

When you create an object with its properties, you create a sealed object type in Flow. These sealed objects will know all of the properties you declared them with and the types of their values.

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// @flow
var obj = {
  foo: 1,
  bar: true,
  baz: 'three'
};

var foo: number  = obj.foo; // Works!
var bar: boolean = obj.bar; // Works!
// $ExpectError
var baz: null    = obj.baz; // Error!
var bat: string  = obj.bat; // Error!
string This type is incompatible with null property `bat` Property not found in object literal

But when objects are sealed, Flow will not allow you to add new properties to them.

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// @flow
var obj = {
  foo: 1
};

// $ExpectError
obj.bar = true;    // Error!
// $ExpectError
obj.baz = 'three'; // Error!
property `bar` Property not found in object literal property `baz` Property not found in object literal

The workaround here might be to turn your object into an unsealed object.

Unsealed objects

When you create an object without any properties, you create an unsealed object type in Flow. These unsealed objects will not know all of their properties and will allow you to add new ones.

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// @flow
var obj = {};

obj.foo = 1;       // Works!
obj.bar = true;    // Works!
obj.baz = 'three'; // Works!

The inferred type of the property becomes what you set it to.

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// @flow
var obj = {};
obj.foo = 42;
var num: number = obj.foo;
Reassigning unsealed object properties

Similar to var and let variables if you reassign a property of an unsealed object, by default Flow will give it the type of all possible assignments.

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// @flow
var obj = {};

if (Math.random()) obj.prop = true;
else obj.prop = "hello";

// $ExpectError
var val1: boolean = obj.prop; // Error!
// $ExpectError
var val2: string  = obj.prop; // Error!
var val3: boolean | string = obj.prop; // Works!
string This type is incompatible with boolean boolean This type is incompatible with string

Sometimes Flow is able to figure out (with certainty) the type of a property after reassignment. In that case, Flow will give it the known type.

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// @flow
var obj = {};

obj.prop = true;
obj.prop = "hello";

// $ExpectError
var val1: boolean = obj.prop; // Error!
var val2: string  = obj.prop; // Works!
string This type is incompatible with boolean

As Flow gets smarter and smarter, there should be fewer of these scenarios.

Unknown property lookup on unsealed objects is unsafe

Unsealed objects allow new properties to be written at any time. Flow ensures that reads are compatible with writes, but does not ensure that writes happen before reads (in the order of execution).

This means that reads from unsealed objects with no matching writes are never checked. This is an unsafe behavior of Flow which may be improved in the future.

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var obj = {};

obj.foo = 1;
obj.bar = true;

var foo: number  = obj.foo; // Works!
var bar: boolean = obj.bar; // Works!
var baz: string  = obj.baz; // Works?

Exact object types

In Flow, it is considered safe to pass an object with extra properties where a normal object type is expected.

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// @flow
function method(obj: { foo: string }) {
  // ...
}

method({
  foo: "test", // Works!
  bar: 42      // Works!
});

Note: This is because of “width subtyping”.

Sometimes it is useful to disable this behavior and only allow a specific set of properties. For this, Flow supports “exact” object types.

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{| foo: string, bar: number |}

Unlike regular object types, it is not valid to pass an object with “extra” properties to an exact object type.

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// @flow
var foo: {| foo: string |} = { foo: "Hello", bar: "World!" }; // Error!
property `bar` Property not found in object type

Objects as maps

Newer versions of the JavaScript standard include a Map class, but it is still very common to use objects as maps as well. In this use case, an object will likely have properties added to it and retrieved throughout its life. Furthermore, the property keys may not even be known statically, so writing out a type annotation would not be possible.

For objects like these, Flow provides a special kind of property, called an “indexer property.” An indexer property allows reads and writes using any key that matches the indexer key type.

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// @flow
var o: { [string]: number } = {};
o["foo"] = 0;
o["bar"] = 1;
var foo: number = o["foo"];

An indexer can be optionally named, for documentation purposes:

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// @flow
var obj: { [user_id: number]: string } = {};
obj[1] = "Julia";
obj[2] = "Camille";
obj[3] = "Justin";
obj[4] = "Mark";

When an object type has an indexer property, property accesses are assumed to have the annotated type, even if the object does not have a value in that slot at runtime. It is the programmer’s responsibility to ensure the access is safe, as with arrays.

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var obj: { [number]: string } = {};
obj[42].length; // No type error, but will throw at runtime

Indexer properties can be mixed with named properties:

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// @flow
var obj: {
  size: number,
  [id: number]: string
} = {
  size: 0
};

function add(id: number, name: string) {
  obj[id] = name;
  obj.size++;
}
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