Never Type

Never

Professional Lesson on BooleanArt

Youtube: Video lesson on the never type

Egghead: Video lesson on the never type

Programming language design does have a concept of bottom type that is a natural outcome as soon as you do code flow analysis. TypeScript does code flow analysis (😎) and so it needs to reliably represent stuff that might never happen.

The never type is used in TypeScript to denote this bottom type. Cases when it occurs naturally:

• A function never returns (e.g. if the function body has while(true){})

• A function always throws (e.g. in function foo(){throw new Error('Not Implemented')} the return type of foo is never)

Of course you can use this annotation yourself as well

let foo: never; // Okay

However, only never can be assigned to another never. e.g.

let foo: never = 123; // Error: Type number is not assignable to never

// Okay as the function's return type is `never`
let bar: never = (() => { throw new Error(`Throw my hands in the air like I just don't care`) })();

Great. Now let's just jump into its key use case :)

Use case: Exhaustive Checks

You can call never functions in a never context.

function foo(x: string | number): boolean {
  if (typeof x === "string") {
    return true;
  } else if (typeof x === "number") {
    return false;
  }

  // Without a never type we would error :
  // - Not all code paths return a value (strict null checks)
  // - Or Unreachable code detected
  // But because TypeScript understands that `fail` function returns `never`
  // It can allow you to call it as you might be using it for runtime safety / exhaustive checks.
  return fail("Unexhaustive!");
}

function fail(message: string): never { throw new Error(message); }

And because never is only assignable to another never you can use it for compile time exhaustive checks as well. This is covered in the discriminated union section.

Confusion with void

As soon as someone tells you that never is returned when a function never exits gracefully you intuitively want to think of it as the same as void. However, void is a Unit. never is a falsum.

A function that returns nothing returns a Unit void. However, a function that never returns (or always throws) returns never. void is something that can be assigned (without strictNullChecking) but never can never be assigned to anything other than never.

Type inference in never returning functions

For function declarations TypeScript infers void by default as shown below:

// Inferred return type: void
function failDeclaration(message: string) {
  throw new Error(message);
}

// Inferred return type: never
const failExpression = function(message: string) {
  throw new Error(message);
};

Of course you can fix it by an explict annotation:

function failDeclaration(message: string): never {
  throw new Error(message);
}

Key reason is backword compatability with real world JavaScript code:

class Base {
    overrideMe() {
        throw new Error("You forgot to override me!");
    }
}

class Derived extends Base {
    overrideMe() {
        // Code that actually returns here
    }
}

If Base.overrideMe .

Real world TypeScript can overcome this with abstract functions but this inferrence is maintained for compatability.