Union Types¶
Think of types as sets. A type is a set in which certain values can inhabit.
never¶
There is an inhabitable type called never. No value exists on the type never, which means an identifier typed as never cannot possibly be assigned any value:
let n: never;
let s: never;
let o: never;
let a: never;
n = 1;
s = "Hello!";
o = { id: 1, skill: "The Force" };
a = [1, 2, 3];
The last four lines are all errors.
The type never is the empty set ∅.
Unions with the empty set ∅¶
If we concatenate a “z” with an empty string “”, we get “z”, right? (the empty string amounts to nothing). If we have a union of string | never (the empty set ∅), we end up with string (the empty set ∅ also amounts to nothing). Examples:
type T = string | never
// → string
type U = number | never;
// → number
type V = string | string[] | never;
// → string | string[]
type W = Record<string, number> | never;
// → { [k: string]: number }
In all of the above cases, the type never (the empty set ∅) is not part of the resulting type (not part of the set).
Union of some type and any¶
Since string is a subtype of any (any is a top type which includes all other types), having a union of string | any results in simply any:
type T = string | any;
type U = number | any;
type V = Array<[number, string]> | any;
T, U and V are all of the type any.