You can achieve what you want without the instanceof keyword as you can write custom type guards now:
interface A {
member: string;
}
function instanceOfA(object: any): object is A {
return 'member' in object;
}
var a: any = {member: "foobar"};
if (instanceOfA(a)) {
alert(a.member);
}
Lots of Members
If you need to check a lot of members to determine whether an object matches your type, you could instead add a discriminator. The below is the most basic example, and requires you to manage your own discriminators... you'd need to get deeper into the patterns to ensure you avoid duplicate discriminators.
interface A {
discriminator: 'I-AM-A';
member: string;
}
function instanceOfA(object: any): object is A {
return object.discriminator === 'I-AM-A';
}
var a: any = {discriminator: 'I-AM-A', member: "foobar"};
if (instanceOfA(a)) {
alert(a.member);
}
Answer from Fenton on Stack OverflowYou can achieve what you want without the instanceof keyword as you can write custom type guards now:
interface A {
member: string;
}
function instanceOfA(object: any): object is A {
return 'member' in object;
}
var a: any = {member: "foobar"};
if (instanceOfA(a)) {
alert(a.member);
}
Lots of Members
If you need to check a lot of members to determine whether an object matches your type, you could instead add a discriminator. The below is the most basic example, and requires you to manage your own discriminators... you'd need to get deeper into the patterns to ensure you avoid duplicate discriminators.
interface A {
discriminator: 'I-AM-A';
member: string;
}
function instanceOfA(object: any): object is A {
return object.discriminator === 'I-AM-A';
}
var a: any = {discriminator: 'I-AM-A', member: "foobar"};
if (instanceOfA(a)) {
alert(a.member);
}
In TypeScript 1.6, user-defined type guard will do the job.
interface Foo {
fooProperty: string;
}
interface Bar {
barProperty: string;
}
function isFoo(object: any): object is Foo {
return 'fooProperty' in object;
}
let object: Foo | Bar;
if (isFoo(object)) {
// `object` has type `Foo`.
object.fooProperty;
} else {
// `object` has type `Bar`.
object.barProperty;
}
And just as Joe Yang mentioned: since TypeScript 2.0, you can even take the advantage of tagged union type.
interface Foo {
type: 'foo';
fooProperty: string;
}
interface Bar {
type: 'bar';
barProperty: number;
}
let object: Foo | Bar;
// You will see errors if `strictNullChecks` is enabled.
if (object.type === 'foo') {
// object has type `Foo`.
object.fooProperty;
} else {
// object has type `Bar`.
object.barProperty;
}
And it works with switch too.
I'm learning through [roadmap](https://roadmap.sh/typescript) and got stuck here (screenshot) where it says instanceOf can be used to check if an object is an instance of interface or type. I tried to do in code but it gives error.
The given code is invalid in TypeScript:
interface Person {
name: string;
age: number
}
const person = {
name: "Ken",
age: 25
}
if (person instanceof Person) // Error: 'Person' only refers to a type, but is being used as a value here.So am I using wrong? or that is a typo in that website? Any help would be highly appreciated. Thank!