900

Code is:

const foo = (foo: string) => {
  const result = []
  result.push(foo)
}

I get the following TS error:

[ts] Argument of type 'string' is not assignable to parameter of type 'never'.

What am I doing wrong? Is this a bug?

1
  • 12
    const result: [] = [] => const result: string[], not just [], but string[], if you don't know the type inside the array, you can always fallback to any[] Commented Apr 9, 2022 at 15:37

22 Answers 22

1157

All you have to do is define your result as a string array, like the following:

const result : string[] = [];

Without defining the array type, it by default will be never. So when you tried to add a string to it, it was a type mismatch, and so it threw the error you saw.

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13 Comments

That seems bizarre to me, why default to never[] ? is there ever a use for that except "an array that will ALWAYS be empty?"
I totally agree because, to be honest, I can't think of a use case that an array of nevers will be useful. But while looking into it I came across this answer which has great info.
Shouldn't the default type be "any"? When you declare a variable (let x; ) it is of type any by default. Not never.
Definitely would expect an array without type to be any[]. Was surprised it was never[] which makes it useless. Unintuitive. Thanks for the answer. edit: grammar
@VincentBuscarello I guess, the main point of such default is to make one to always add types to their arrays; but the error message is definitely not helpful.
|
141

Another way is:

const result: any[] = [];

4 Comments

Actually using any isn't a good option, because it basically turns off any TypeScript features. It's a workaround and can lead to various bugs.
Yes. But sometimes nothing else works especially when you are working with third-party libraries..
wouldnt const result: any[] = [] be more accurate? its an array of any not and array treated as any
@g00dnatur3 is right. If you must use any, then at least specify that it is an array of items of any type.
138

This seems to be some strange behavior in typescript that they are stuck with for legacy reasons. If you have the code:

const result = []

Usually it would be treated as if you wrote:

const result:any[] = []

however, if you have both noImplicitAny FALSE, AND strictNullChecks TRUE in your tsconfig, it is treated as:

const result:never[] = []

This behavior defies all logic, IMHO. Turning on null checks changes the entry types of an array?? And then turning on noImplicitAny actually restores the use of any without any warnings??

It's unintuitive that adding an additional type check (noImplicitAny) results in more relaxed type checking, especially when it introduces the thing you were attempting to eliminate.

4 Comments

True, this is absolutely unintuitive, a parameter called "no implicit any" should imply that any time something would be assumed to be any - it is not. Also, the implicit "never" seems dumb, why not simply state an error with: Array does not have its type declared. IMHO this should solely depend on noImplicitAny, not on the combination.
I think that people who contribute to large repos tend to sometimes over-engineer it. At least we know what flags we should set to make it intuitive for us. As for me I set both flags to true and feel fine with it.
Just to clarify, what is changed is not the runtime behavior of the program (there are no types at runtime!). The only thing that changes is the type checker behavior, which becomes a little bit more strict as you enable more checking options in your tsconfig. I don't think it "defies all logic"
@Brann Not quite, it becomes LESS strict as you enable the "no implicit any" checking options.
125

I got the same error in React function component, using useState hook.

The solution was to declare the type of useState at initialisation using angle brackets:

// Example: type of useState is an array of string
const [items , setItems] = useState<string[]>([]); 

Comments

36

I was having same error In ReactJS statless function while using ReactJs Hook useState. I wanted to set state of an object array , so if I use the following way

const [items , setItems] = useState([]);

and update the state like this:

 const item = { id : new Date().getTime() , text : 'New Text' };
 setItems([ item , ...items ]);

I was getting error:

Argument of type '{ id: number; text: any }' is not assignable to parameter of type 'never'

but if do it like this,

const [items , setItems] = useState([{}]);

Error is gone but there is an item at 0 index which don't have any data(don't want that).

so the solution I found is:

const [items , setItems] = useState([] as any);

2 Comments

Actually, I think a better version of your solution would be const [items , setItems] = useState([] as string[]);
A better approach would be to declare the type of useState at the time of initialization, as suggested by @neiya: const [items , setItems] = useState<any[]>([]);
32
const foo = (foo: string) => {
  const result: string[] = []
  result.push(foo)
}

You needed specify what the array is since result = [] has a return type of any[]. Typically you want to avoid any types since they are meant to be used as an "Escape hatch" according to Microsoft.

The result is an object that is an array of string.

Comments

25

The solution i found was

const [files, setFiles] = useState([] as any);

5 Comments

Using as any thwarts a static typing system. If you know what type or types will be housed in the array, it's much better to be explicit: const myArray: string[] = []; const [files, setFiles] = useState(myArray);. Note in the case of useState, you can pass in a generic, instead: const [files, setFiles] = useState<string[]>([]);
This is a bad practice. By taking as any you are just saying "nah I don't want to use typescript". Neiya's answer on the other hand is good enough. A better approach should be interface, but I am new to typescript as well, so I am not sure how to interface this one.
I can't believe this answer has so many upvotes, this is basically silencing typescript, defeating its purpose altogether.
@jmealy your answer worked for me and should be the ts way of solving this. Following your example, I declared a const outside my component as const initialEmailsState: string[] = []; and used it inside the the component with useState as const [emails, setEmails] = useState(initialEmailsState); and now I can set emails like this without problems: setEmails([...emails, createOption(inputValue)]);
dont do this. please use generic for element typing.
12

I was able to get past this by using the Array keyword instead of empty brackets:

const enhancers: Array<any> = [];

Use:

if (typeof devToolsExtension === 'function') {
  enhancers.push(devToolsExtension())
}

2 Comments

Thanks for pointing out. The Array keyword yet is another good way. It is even more semantically useful in case you have to define a type for an array of arrays like this let parsed: Array<[]> = [];
@ValentineShi You could still do something like [][]. If you wanted something like an array of array of numbers you could do number[][]. On that note, do consider that: parsed: Array<[]> here is implicitly Array<any[]>
11

Error: Argument of type 'any' is not assignable to parameter of type 'never'.

In tsconfig.json -

  "noImplicitReturns": false,

   "strictNullChecks":false,

enter image description here

Solution: type as 'never'

enter image description here

1 Comment

Horrible solution. Can't believe that this has been upvoted so much. Use proper types instead, or create them by yourself. Do not use type any.
6

Remove "strictNullChecks": true from "compilerOptions" or set it to false in the tsconfig.json file of your Ng app. These errors will go away like anything and your app would compile successfully.

Disclaimer: This is just a workaround. This error appears only when the null checks are not handled properly which in any case is not a good way to get things done.

1 Comment

For me,in tsconfig is only "strict" part,when i set it to false as you say error go away,and this is in react,not angular.Thanks.
6

One more reason for the error.

if you are exporting after wrapping component with connect()() then props may give typescript error
Solution: I didn't explore much as I had the option of replacing connect function with useSelector hook
for example

/* Comp.tsx */
interface IComp {
 a: number
}

const Comp = ({a}:IComp) => <div>{a}</div>

/* ** 

below line is culprit, you are exporting default the return 
value of Connect and there is no types added to that return
value of that connect()(Comp) 

** */

export default connect()(Comp)


--
/* App.tsx */
const App = () => {
/**  below line gives same error 
[ts] Argument of type 'number' is not assignable to 
parameter of type 'never' */
 return <Comp a={3} />
}

Comments

6

I got the error when defining (initialising) an array as follows:

let mainMenu: menuObjectInterface[] | [] = [];

The code I got the problem in:

let mainMenu: menuObjectInterface[] | [] = [];
dbresult.rows.forEach((m) => {
    if (!mainMenu.find((e) => e.menucode === m.menucode)) {
        // Not found in mainMenu, yet
        mainMenu.push({menucode: m.menucode, menudescription: m.menudescription})  // Here the error
    }
})

The error was: TS2322: Type 'any' is not assignable to type 'never'

The reason was that the array was initialised with also the option of an empty array. Typescript saw a push to a type which also can be empty. Hence the error.

Changing the line to this fixed the error:

let mainMenu: menuObjectInterface[] = [];

Comments

5

In case you are using TypeScript with Vue and you are facing this issue in data when initializing the variable. you can try this {} as any.

export default defineComponent({
name: "Student",
 data() {
    return {
       studentList: {} as any,
    }
}
......
})

Note: Usually as a best practice, we discourage any, so replace any with your Object model. like studentList: {} as StudentModel. where Student model can be a Interface like this:

export interface StudentModel {
    studentId: number,
    fullName: string,
    grade: string
}

2 Comments

Not to beat a dead horse, but use of any should be discouraged in favour of using TS properly. I use it too here and there, however it's just a convenient escape hatch. This is in case a newbie glances at this answer.
yeah makes sense @kalnode, just in place of any, we can replace with the Object model that we have. let me add this in answer as well.
4

You need to type result to an array of string const result: string[] = [];.

Comments

4

I did a workaround by doing

const array = new Array()
array.push(123)
console.log(array) // => [123]

1 Comment

It stopped the error on the type, I understand its better to declare the types, but in some extraordinary case, I want some javascript flexibility...
3

In Vue 3 app for typescript supporting , you can define as follows :

const result = ref<string[]>([]);

const foo = (foo:string)=>{
    result.value.push(foo as string)
}

Comments

2

you could also add as string[]

const foo = (foo: string) => {
  const result = []
  (result as string[]).push(foo)
}

I did it when it was part of an object

let complexObj = {
arrData : [],
anotherKey: anotherValue
...
}
(arrData as string[]).push('text')

Comments

1

I received the same error

Argument of type 'string' is not assignable to parameter of type 'never'.

in a jasmine test:

const toggleModalSpy = spyOn(component, 'toggleUpload').and.callThrough();

The actual error was that the component had no 'toggleUpload' method. It took me some time to figure it out. 😂

Comments

0

in latest versions of angular, you have to define the type of the variables:

  1. if it is a string, you must do like that:

    public message : string ="";

  2. if it is a number:

    public n : number=0;

  3. if a table of string:

    public tab: string[] = [];

  4. if a table of number:

    public tab: number[]=[];

  5. if a mixed table:

    public tab: any[] = []; .......etc (for other type of variables)

  6. if you don't define type of variable: by default the type is never

NB: in your case, you must know the type of variables that your table must contain, and choose the right option (like option 3 ,4 5 ).

1 Comment

This is not related to Angular, it's a typescript question
0

This error occurs when you set the value of a property in an object when you haven't set the properties of the object. Declare a type for the object with its properties, then assign the type when you instantiated the object. Now you can set the values of the properties without this error.

Comments

0

I had this error for useRef

before with error:

const revealRefs = useRef([]);

  const addToRefs = (el) => {
    if (el && !revealRefs.current.includes(el)) {
      revealRefs.current.push(el);
    }
  };

after without error:

const revealRefs = useRef<HTMLElement[]>([]);

  const addToRefs = (el: HTMLElement | null) => {
    if (el && !revealRefs.current.includes(el)) {
      revealRefs.current.push(el);
    }
  };

Comments

-1

And i just added a file inside src with name typings.d.ts

with this line in the file

declare var ClipboardJS: any;

and magically it worked. NO such type never issues occurred then.

1 Comment

I don't see how this will be at all related to the question. If it worked for you, it suggests you were doing something with ClipboardJS which is incorrect according to the typings (whether your code is wrong, or the typings were wrong). This won't just magically fix all instances of the error. Like the one the question shows off const arr = []; will be types as never[]. Adding a random global definition doesn't change that arr has no type information for what goes in the array.

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