Current tsconfig naming is problematic w.r.t. VSCode (and other IDEs)

[victornoel]

OS?

archlinux latest

Versions.

@angular/cli: 1.0.0-rc.0
node: 6.10.0
os: linux x64
@angular/common: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/compiler: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/core: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/flex-layout: 2.0.0-rc.1
@angular/forms: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/http: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/material: 2.0.0-beta.2
@angular/platform-browser: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/platform-browser-dynamic: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/router: 4.0.0-rc.1
@angular/cli: 1.0.0-rc.0
@angular/compiler-cli: 4.0.0-rc.1

Repro steps.

app created with the cli

Mention any other details that might be useful.

It seems that the choice was made to name tsconfigs as:

• ./src/tsconfig.app.json
• ./src/tsconfig.spec.json
• ./e2e/tsconfig.e2e.json

All extending ./tsconfig.json.

The problem with this is well explained in the following tickets of vscode and typescript:

• tsserver (vscode) does not recognize multiple tsconfig.json in the same directory microsoft/TypeScript#8435
• support sub-projects within a single tsconfig.json microsoft/TypeScript#1928
• Possible problem with multiple tsconfig.json files in subdirectories microsoft/vscode#10084

Basically, vscode is expecting a file named tsconfig.json in a given directory (and multiple can be used, but in different directories).

Currently what happens with angular-cli, is that only the parent tsconfig.json is used by vscode, and thus libraries are missing because only declared in tsconfig.app.json (or one of the others).

It would make sense to at least rename ./e2e/tsconfig.e2e.json to ./e2e/tsconfig.json and ./src/tsconfig.app.json to ./src/tsconfig.json. Or maybe it is possible to tell vscode this but I didn't find how…

And then, I think we are blocked for now concerning the specs files since they are in the same directory as the app files. In the above issues, Microsoft people recommend to have two directory, one for the tests and one for the application.

[victornoel]

Btw, the same thing happens with other compiler options (such as target!).

[edemirkan]

I can confirm. Missing "target": "es5" in tsconfig.json highlighted my accessors as syntax errors.

[victornoel]

Some of the things requested here were fixed in 1.0.0-rc1 via #5046/#5060 (es5 target and dom lib).

This is still open to questions maybe… not sure. @filipesilva, I see you were the one fixing the above issue, should this be closed or do you think the rest of the issue will result on some actions?

[Juansasa]

Still not working for me

[victornoel]

@nickiewooster you need to update your project :) I think the bug fix is only for new project.

[victornoel]

(I mean updating you tsconfig.json file)

[Juansasa]

I dont see anyone mention modifying tsconfig.spec.json.
There were no compilation errors but it will be one when updating a test.

I have to add the "dom" lib to tsconfig.spec.json as well to fix the issue

[victornoel]

@nickiewooster sorry, what was your problem originally? Just to be clear :) I thought you had the same one as me with the IDE, not the compilation :)

[victornoel]

@nickiewooster also, if you need the dom library for your test, feel free to add it, but if I understood well, from the point of view of default newly created angular project, adding the dom lib to the tests is not needed. It should only be present in the application itself.

[Juansasa]

Sorry i was referred here from another thread and got a bit mixed up. You're right the tsconfig modification alone will fix the IDE errors

[filipesilva]

@victornoel it was intentional to only have one tsconfig with the a name that would be recognized by the IDE.

This was our solution to the problem where src/ is actually home to two different 'apps': the Angular app and the unit test app. Each need different configuration and we were specialcasing that before with hacks.

For the sake of consistency we change all tsconfigs to specify their purpose and left the general tsconfig on top.

There were a couple more solutions we considered but at the end of the day settled on this one because it was the simpler to understand.

Failing to include the es5 target and dom lib was just a mistake on my part though.

[victornoel]

@filipesilva ok, thanks for taking the time to explain!

So I guess we can simply close this issue now that it was fixed in rc1 :)

[Ionaru]

On compiling, I now get the error Cannot find namespace 'NodeJS'
It references an import of import Timer = NodeJS.Timer;
Is this related? The import and typing worked fine before the tsconfig change.