Typescript: foo.ts is resolved before foo.d.ts even if the latter is in files[]

[alexeagle]

Affects at least TS 2.7.2 and 2.6.2. This problem appears when compiling files separately, like we do under Bazel.

Imagine this simple app

src/lib.ts

export const a = 1;

src/main.ts

import {a} from './lib';

Imagine lib.ts was compiled separately, so there already exists
dist/lib.d.ts

export declare const a = 1;

Now, I want to compile main.ts as a separate program. Given src/tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "rootDirs": [
      ".",
      "../dist"
    ],
    "outDir": "../dist",
    "declaration": true
  },

  "files": [
    "main.ts",
    // lib was compiled separately
    "../dist/lib.d.ts"
  ]
}

We see that lib.d.ts is already in the program before resolution begins. However the compiler resolves the import statement to the lib.ts file instead, adding it to the program, and tries to emit on top of an input, so the error is

$ ./node_modules/.bin/tsc -p src
error TS5055: Cannot write file '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/dist/lib.d.ts' because it would overwrite input file.

Okay, we didn't want lib.ts in the program, so we should just use --noResolve to prevent that, but it's also broken:

$ ./node_modules/.bin/tsc -p src --noResolve --traceResolution
======== Resolving module './lib' from '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/main.ts'. ========
Module resolution kind is not specified, using 'NodeJs'.
'rootDirs' option is set, using it to resolve relative module name './lib'.
Checking if '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/' is the longest matching prefix for '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/lib' - 'true'.
Checking if '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/dist/' is the longest matching prefix for '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/lib' - 'false'.
Longest matching prefix for '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/lib' is '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/'.
Loading 'lib' from the root dir '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/', candidate location '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/lib'.
Loading module as file / folder, candidate module location '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/lib', target file type 'TypeScript'.
File '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/lib.ts' exist - use it as a name resolution result.
======== Module name './lib' was successfully resolved to '/usr/local/google/home/alexeagle/Projects/repro_ts_resolving_ts/src/lib.ts'. ========
src/main.ts(1,17): error TS2307: Cannot find module './lib'.

So far our workaround at Google is one of:

• use Bazel sandboxing to make the inputs appear in different places
• use our own custom compiler which elides any emit to files we don't expect

However under Bazel we sometimes cannot sandbox (eg. on Windows) and cannot use our custom compiler (eg. when we are compiling it)
so we are stuck.

I found that ts.CompilerOptions.suppressOutputPathCheck could be a workaround, but tsc doesn't allow that flag from the command line or tsconfig.json (it's not in optionDeclarations in commandLineParser.ts)

[alexeagle]

By the way, the previous compilation produced a readonly lib.d.ts so even if I add suppressOutputPathCheck the compilation still fails with EPERM: operation not permitted

[mhegazy]

the rootDirs resolution logic gives precedence to closest directory. the rational is that these rootDirs are meant to "augment" and not "overwrite" the contents of local files. this saves us from looking ./a in all of the rootDirs until we find it in the local folder, we always look in the local folder first, since we are likely to find it.

that said. i would like to get more context on what you are trying to achieve. this seems similar to the Project to project reference @RyanCavanaugh is working on.

[alexeagle]

Just trying to compile parts of an application independently, the same thing we've been doing at Google from the beginning. But as I mentioned, we've worked around this problem with bazel sandboxing and our custom compiler. Now I want to use tsc to compile our custom compiler itself, without relying on sandboxing as that's broken on Windows.

Yes, the Bazel approach is a precursor to TS natively understanding multiple compilation units, I'd be happy to discuss that!

In the meantime I still haven't found a workaround for this issue...

[evmar]

My attempt at restating Alex's problem: given that compilation already happened for his 'lib' thinger, his tsconfig explicitly lists a .d.ts file. tsc shouldn't be looking around to find an extra .ts file and parse+emitting for it in that case because it's doing extra work -- the whole reason he has this lib.d.ts ready around is because he built it in parallel.

[mhegazy]

given that compilation already happened for his 'lib' thinger, his tsconfig explicitly lists a .d.ts file. tsc shouldn't be looking around to find an extra .ts file and parse+emitting for it in that case because it's doing extra work

These are really two different phases. the first is identifing what files belong to the compilation unit by looking at imports. this lists all files. which includes src/main.ts and dist/lib.d.ts, then the compiler expands the set of source files by following imports and triple-slash references. at this point it runs into an import for ./lib, and tries to resolve it, and that leads to a new file src/lib.ts there is not really a place that the compiler thinks that src/lib.ts and dist/lib.d.ts are the same file.

[mhegazy]

As i said earlier, the alternative is to go through sourceDirs as they are listed, but that means that for the common case, we will be touching the disk many times for files that do not exist. this optimization of finding the shortest path allows us to lookup files in the same folder as they were referenced before trying other rootDirs.

[alexeagle]

I think the way to fix this is not to always try to resolve imports using other rootDirs, only to check if the rootFiles already satisfy an import.

[mprobst]

Alternative idea: when --noResolve is true, just never look at the file system and only use the list of source files as the source of truth on what files are present? Then in the example above, ../dist/lib.ts would consistently not be found, and compilation would succeed by finding lib.d.ts (or fail if that's not around).

[rkirov]

@RyanCavanaugh just to confirm on the "help wanted" and "committed" tags that is fixing it the way https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/22208#issuecomment-376879283 is proposing?

[manughub]

Here's a reproduction of the issue.