Files
tiny-pattern-ts/README.md
T
tmu aaeeef1e11 📝 Document the finite-only universe decision
Record why open universes and value/stringification collisions are
rejected, the `Member<T, K>` inversion, and the findings from the
rejected open-universe attempt so they are not re-run.
2026-09-23 13:42:12 +00:00

2.3 KiB

tiny-pattern-ts

Pattern matching for TypeScript/ESM environments (F#-style, not regex).

Description

tiny-pattern-ts brings F#-style pattern matching to TypeScript. Patterns are ordinary objects whose matches method is a TypeScript type guard, so narrowing composes the way any other guard does. It is deliberately not a regex engine and not a macro: there is no transpiler and no DSL to learn, and the type-level contract is the feature — see development/library.md for the design decisions and Caveats for the limits.

Requirements

  • Node.js >= 26 (engines field; pinned via .node-version).
  • TypeScript >= 5.0 to consume the published declarations. The emitted .d.ts use const type parameters (TS 5.0) and keep their relative .ts specifiers; both resolve on TS >= 5.0 in node10 / node16 / nodenext / bundler.
  • The package is ESM-only (no CommonJS shim).

API

Yet to be implemented

Caveats

  • Only finite universes are supported. The factory must be given a finite union of literals; string, number and template literals are rejected. This is what lets the exhaustive overload be proven, so the runtime dispatch throw stays unreachable through the typed API.
  • A value and its stringification must not both be present. Object keys stringify, so a universe containing both a member and the string it stringifies to — 1 | "1", true | "true", null | "null" — is rejected at the factory. Either form alone is fine, and one value's string form may coexist with a different value's bare form ("true" | false).
  • symbol and bigint are not supported. A symbol brand is a compile-time phantom with nothing to match at runtime, and a bigint is not a valid property key; neither satisfies the matcher's universe constraint.
  • NaN and -0 cannot be matched specifically. They have no literal type, so both stay part of number.

License

MIT © 2025 tmu. See LICENSE.

Contributing

Contributions are documented in CONTRIBUTING.md; the reasons behind the project's decisions, rejected alternatives, and known issues live in development/. AI coding agents start at AGENTS.md.