ts2fable

Fable parser for TypeScript declaration files.

Usage

Install it with yarn or npm. With yarn it is:

yarn global add ts2fable

With npm it is:

npm install -g ts2fable

Run the ts2fable command on a TypeScript file and also specify the F# output file. The F# namespace in taken from the output filename. In this example, it is Yargs.

yarn add @types/yargs --dev
ts2fable node_modules/@types/yargs/index.d.ts src/Yargs.fs

You can also use --export(or -e) option to collect from multiple tsfiles

In below sample: All the related ts files in npm packages uifabric and office-ui-fabric-react will be compiled to OfficeReact.fs as a bundle

ts2fable node_modules/office-ui-fabric-react/lib/index.d.ts test-compile/OfficeReact.fs -e uifabric office-ui-fabric-react

You can find more information about how to interact with JavaScript from F# here. Please note the parser is not perfect and some tweaking by hand may be needed. Please submit bugs as issues on GitHub.

Online Version

You can also try out an in-browser version here

The online version will be updated automatically when commits is merged

Contributing

Succesfull builds on the master branch are uploaded and tagged as next. You can help us test these builds by installing them with:

yarn global add ts2fable@next

Running code from source

Windows:

git clone https://github.com/fable-compiler/ts2fable
Install all dependencies: fake.cmd run build.fsx

Unix:

git clone https://github.com/fable-compiler/ts2fable
./fake.sh run build.fsx

Common to all OS

dotnet restore dotnet-fake.proj
In vscode, press Ctrl+Shift+P > Run Task > WatchTest
Add your test in test/fsFileTests.fs and prefix it with mocha only (See below sample)

Sample Test:

only "duplicated variable exports" <| fun _ ->
    let tsPaths = ["node_modules/reactxp/dist/web/ReactXP.d.ts"]
    let fsPath = "test-compile/ReactXP.fs"
    testFsFiles tsPaths fsPath  <| fun fsFiles ->
        fsFiles
        |> getTopVarialbles
        |> List.countBy(fun vb -> vb.Name)
        |> List.forall(fun (_,l) -> l = 1)
        |> equal true

Press F5 to debug this test

Use locally built version of TS2Fable

As above, clone then run fake.cmd run build.fsx.

Now compile the local sources:

Navigate to .tools: cd ./tools
compile: dotnet fable yarn-fable-splitter -- ./src/ts2fable.fsproj --config ./tools/splitter.config.js --port free

This should have created a folder ./dist.

You can now execute it through node: node ./dist/ts2fable.js C:\projects\MyCoolProject\node_modules\babylonjs\babylon.d.ts C:\projects\MyCoolProject\Bindings\BabylonJS\babylonjs.fs

Conventions

Some JavaScript/TypeScript features have no direct translation to F#. Here is a list of common workarounds adopted by the parser to solve these problems:

Erased unions: TypeScript union types work differently from F# and its only purpose is to specify the types allowed for a function argument. In F# they are translated as erased unions: they're checked at compiled time but they'll be removed from the generated JS code.

type CanvasRenderingContext2D =
    abstract fillStyle: U3<string, CanvasGradient, CanvasPattern> with get, set

let ctx: CanvasRenderingContext2D = failwith "dummy"
ctx.fillStyle <- U3.Case1 "#FF0000"

Constructor functions: In JS any function can become a constructor just by calling it with the new keyword. In the parsed files, interfaces with this capability will have a Create method attached:

type CanvasRenderingContext2DType =
    abstract prototype: CanvasRenderingContext2D with get, set
    [<Emit("new $0($1...)")>] abstract Create: unit -> CanvasRenderingContext2D

Callable interfaces: In the same way, JS functions are just objects which means applying arguments directly to any object is legal in JS. To convey, the parser attaches an Invoke method to callable interfaces:

type Express =
    inherit Application
    abstract version: string with get, set
    abstract application: obj with get, set
    [<Emit("$0($1...)")>] abstract Invoke: unit -> Application