luau/docs/typecheck.md

Type checking

Luau supports a gradual type system through the use of type annotations and type inference.

Type inference modes

There are three modes currently available. Each one differ in important ways. They must be annotated on the top few lines among the comments.

• --!nocheck,
• --!nonstrict (default), and
• --!strict

nocheck mode will simply not start the type inference engine whatsoever.

As for the other two, they are largely similar but with one important difference: in nonstrict mode, we infer any for most of the types if we couldn't figure it out early enough. This means that given this snippet:

local foo = 1

We can infer foo to be of type number, whereas the foo in the snippet below is inferred any:

local foo
foo = 1

However, in strict mode, the second snippet would be able to infer number for foo still.

Structural type system

Luau's type system is structural by default, which is to say that we inspect the shape of two tables to see if they are similar enough. This was the obvious choice because Lua 5.1 is inherently structural.

type A = {x: number, y: number, z: number?}
type B = {x: number, y: number, z: number}

local a1: A = {x = 1, y = 2}        -- ok
local b1: B = {x = 1, y = 2, z = 3} -- ok

local a2: A = b1 -- ok
local b2: B = a1 -- not ok

Primitive types

In Lua, we have 8 primitive types: nil, string, number, boolean, table, function, thread, and userdata. Of these, only table and function are not represented by name, but have their dedicated syntax as covered in this syntax document. Note that we have explicitly skipped userdata from the type system.

Additionally, we also have any which is a special built-in type. It effectively disables all type checking, and thus should be used as last resort.

local s = "foo"
local n = 1
local b = true
local t = coroutine.running()

local a: any = 1
print(a.x) -- Type checker believes this to be ok, but crashes at runtime.

There's a special case where we intentionally avoid inferring nil. It's a good thing because it's never useful for a local variable to always be nil, thereby permitting you to assign things to it for Luau to infer that instead.

local a
local b = nil

Functions

Let's start with something simple.

local function f(x) return x end

local a: number = f(1)     -- ok
local b: string = f("foo") -- ok
local c: string = f(true)  -- not ok

In strict mode, the inferred type of this function f is <A>(A) -> A (take a look at generics), whereas in nonstrict we infer (any) -> any. We know this is true because f can take anything and then return that. If we used x with another concrete type, then we would end up inferring that.

Similarly, we can infer the types of the parameters with ease. By passing a parameter into anything that also has a type, we are saying "this and that has the same type."

local function greetingsHelper(name: string)
    return "Hello, " .. name
end

local function greetings(name)
    return greetingsHelper(name)
end

print(greetings("Alexander")          -- ok
print(greetings({name = "Alexander"}) -- not ok

Another example is assigning a value to a local outside of the function: we know x and y are the same type when we assign y to x. By calling it, we assigned x the value of the argument we passed in. In doing so, we gave x a more concrete type, so now we know x is whatever type that got passed in.

local x
local function f(y) x = y end

f(1)     -- ok
f(2)     -- ok
f("foo") -- not ok

Tables

From the perspective of the programmers, there are three states you should care about. They are: unsealed table, sealed table, and generic table. This is intended to represent the relationship of two different tables.

Unsealed tables

An unsealed table is a table whose properties could still be tacked on. This occurs when the table constructor literal had zero expressions. This is one way to accumulate knowledge of the shape of this table.

local t = {} -- {}
t.x = 1      -- {x: number}
t.y = 2      -- {x: number, y: number}

However, if this local were written as local t: {} = {}, it ends up sealing the table, so the two assignments henceforth will not be ok.

Furthermore, once we exit the scope where this unsealed table was created in, we seal it.

local function vec2(x, y)
    local t = {}
    t.x = x
    t.y = y
    return t
end

local v2 = vec2(1, 2)
v2.z = 3 -- not ok

Sealed tables

A sealed table is a table that is now locked down. This occurs when the table constructor literal had 1 or more expression.

local t = {x = 1} -- {x: number}
t.y = 2           -- not ok

Generic tables

This typically occurs when the symbol does not have any annotated types or were not inferred anything concrete. In this case, when you index on a parameter, you're requesting that there is a table with a matching interface.

local function f(t)
    return t.x + t.y
           --^   --^ {x: _, y: _}
end

f({x = 1, y = 2})        -- ok
f({x = 1, y = 2, z = 3}) -- ok
f({x = 1})               -- not ok

Table indexers

These are particularly useful for when your table is used similarly to an array.

local t = {"Hello", "world!"} -- {[number]: string}
print(table.concat(t, ", "))

Generics

The type inference engine was built from the ground up to recognize generics. A generic is simply a type parameter in which another type could be slotted in. It's extremely useful because it allows the type inference engine to remember what the type actually is, unlike any.

type Array<T> = {[number]: T}

local strings: Array<string> = {"Hello", "world!"}
local numbers: Array<number> = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}

Union types

A union type represents one of the types in this set. If you try to pass a union onto another thing that expects a more specific type, it will fail.

For example, what if this string | number was passed into something that expects number, but the passed in value was actually a string?

local stringOrNumber: string | number = "foo"

local onlyString: string = stringOrNumber -- not ok
local onlyNumber: number = stringOrNumber -- not ok

Note: it's impossible to be able to call a function if there are two or more function types in this union.

Intersection types

An intersection type represents all of the types in this set. It's useful for two main things: to join multiple tables together, or to specify overloadable functions.

type XCoord = {x: number}
type YCoord = {y: number}
type ZCoord = {z: number}

type Vector2 = XCoord & YCoord
type Vector3 = XCoord & YCoord & ZCoord

local vec2: Vector2 = {x = 1, y = 2}        -- ok
local vec3: Vector3 = {x = 1, y = 2, z = 3} -- ok

type SimpleOverloadedFunction = (string) -> number & (number) -> string

local f: SimpleOverloadedFunction

local r1: number = f("foo") -- ok
local r2: number = f(12345) -- not ok
local r3: string = f("foo") -- not ok
local r4: string = f(12345) -- ok

Note: it's impossible to create an intersection type of some primitive types, e.g. string & number, or string & boolean, or other variations thereof.

Note: Luau still does not support user-defined overloaded functions. Some of Roblox and Lua 5.1 functions have different function signature, so inherently requires overloaded functions.

Type refinements

When we check the type of a value, what we're doing is we're refining the type, hence "type refinement." Currently, the support for this is somewhat basic.

Using type comparison:

local x: string | number

if type(x) == "string" then
    local y: string = x -- ok
    local z: number = x -- not ok
end

local y: string = x -- not ok
local z: number = x -- not ok

Using truthy test:

local x: string? = nil

if x then
    local y: string = x -- ok
end

And using assert will work with the above type guards:

local x: string | number

assert(type(x) == "string")

local y: string = x -- ok
local z: number = x -- not ok

Using Luau on Roblox

All of Roblox's types are readily available for Luau's type inference engine to use, too. We can automatically deduce what your Instance.new is actually supposed to return.

local part = Instance.new("Part")
local basePart: BasePart = part