fully-optional

Handle null and undefined in safe and composable way.

Reasoning

When dealing with nullability in Typescript you need to create a union type T | undefined and then rely on Typescript control flow analysis to make sure you don't use undefined where you want something else

However this approach has its flaws:

• The code is imperative, you do not immediately see the business logic or data manipulation
• The code can quickly become a mess when you nest if statements or check multiple values for null

type Data = {
  data?: {
    date?: string;
  };
};
 
declare const getData: () => Data | undefined;
 
declare const parseDate: (date: string) => Date | undefined;

Default approach

const f = () => {
  const data = getData();
 
  let date: Date | undefined;
 
  if (data && data.data) {
    const dateString = data.data.date;
 
    if (dateString) {
      date = parseDate(dateString);
    }
  }
 
  date = date || new Date();
 
  return date.toLocaleDateString();
};

Using fully-optional

import { flow } from 'lodash/fp';
import { bind, withDefaultLazy } from 'fully-optional';
 
const f = flow(
  getData,
  bind((data) => data.data),
  bind((data) => data.date),
  bind(parseDate),
  withDefaultLazy(() => new Date()),
  (date) => date.toLocaleDateString(),
);

This library provides an abstraction over manual handling of null values with a concise and composable API

There are, however, other approaches to solve null problem with composability in mind: Maybe or Option monads.

So why should you use fully-optional instead of a Maybe monad?

• When using Maybes you introduce a new wrapper datatype that does not integrate well into an existing javascript ecosystem

• There is no need to introduce a new way to handle null values when we have a good standart solution with union types

• Union types scale better than Maybe monad.

  For example you have a function

  declare const f: (value: number) => Maybe<T>;

  When you refactor it's type to

  declare const f: (value: number) => T;

  You will break all the callers of this function, but you will not break them by changing the return type from T | undefined to T

Install

npm install fully-optional

yarn add fully-optional

Usage

import { bind } from 'fully-optional';
 
declare const a: string | undefined;
 
bind(a, parseInt); // inferred type number | undefined

All functions are also curried data-last to allow composition

import { flow } from 'lodash/fp';
import { bind } from 'fully-optional';
 
type X = {
  a?: {
    b?: string;
  };
};
 
declare const f: (...args: any[]) => X | undefined;
 
const r = flow(
  f,
  bind((e) => e.a),
  bind((e) => e.b),
  bind(parseInt),
); // inferred type number | undefined

API

all

Apply a function to an array of values if all of them are not null or undefined

declare const arr: [string | undefined, number | undefined];
 
all(arr, ([s, n]) => parseInt(s) * n); // number | undefined

bind

Apply a function to a value if it is not null or undefined

declare const a: string | undefined;
 
bind(a, (e) => e.toUpperCase()); // string | undefined

isEmpty

Check if value is null or undefined

isEmpty(a);

isNotEmpty

Check if value is not null or undefined

isNotEmpty(a);

match

Give two functions to handle both empty and non empty cases

declare const a: string | undefined;
 
match(a, {
  some: (e) => e.toUpperCase(),
  none: () => '',
});

withDefault

Return default value if the argument is null or undefined

declare const a: string | undefined;
 
withDefault(a, '');

withDefaultLazy

Calculate and return default value if the argument is null or undefined

declare const a: string | undefined;
declare const expensiveDefaultValue: () => string;
 
withDefaultLazy(a, expensiveDefaultValue);

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome.
Please make sure to update tests as appropriate.

License

MIT