Refactoring to convert && chain to optional chain expression

[DanielRosenwasser]

interface Foo {
    bar?: {
        baz?: string;
    }
}

declare let foo: Foo | undefined;

[|foo && foo.bar && foo.bar.baz|]

It should be possible to convert that chain into the following:

interface Foo {
    bar?: {
        baz?: string;
    }
}

declare let foo: Foo | undefined;

foo?.bar?.baz;

[DanielRosenwasser]

You know, mostly like this

[Urigo]

maybe a code-mode or babel transform that runs throughout a codebase?

[DanielRosenwasser]

@Urigo That could be done too, but I think having this granularity is good because it's not strictly the same semantics. ?. always returns undefined, && keeps the original nullish value.

[switz]

Also keep in mind that optional chaining returns true on 0 and '' (empty string), normally falsy values in javascript. So running this as a code mod would almost certainly cause unintended bugs.

[MLoughry]

Also keep in mind that optional chaining returns true on 0 and '' (empty string), normally falsy values in javascript. So running this as a code mod would almost certainly cause unintended bugs.

I'm not sure I really follow. Such code would be rather questionable in the first place, no? If you have an && chain that could be converted to an optional chain, and it returns '' or false as a short-circuit, then the same code would be throwing a TypeError if the value is a non-empty string or true.

[fatcerberus]

I could certainly envision a scenario where code was written that depends on short-circuiting on falsy values. We're eternally stuck with typeof null === 'object' for backward compatibility reasons, after all.

Also there's no TypeError because boolean and string are object-coercible. The subsequent property access would just return undefined and short-circuit.

[jineshshah36]

[|foo && foo.bar && foo.bar.baz|]

What do the “|” mean?

[dragomirtitian]

@jineshshah36 [|code|] is the syntax used typescript four-slash tests to mark a selection. Some diagnostic suggestions are not exposed unless they can be applied to the selected code.

[MrAndersen1]

All too eager to start using the ?. syntax I managed to play a trick on myself by converting
if (foo && foo.bar && foo.bar.indexOf(someValue) !== -1)
to
if (foo?.bar?.indexOf(someValue) !== -1)
which had quite the opposite behaviour of what was intended heh.

Just one of the (probably more obvious in hindsight) things a script would have to keep in mind :)