TypeScript type definition generator for GObject introspection GIR files
CLI tool to generate Typescript Type Definition files for GJS.
npx @ts-for-gir/cli --helpAlternatively you can also add @ts-for-gir/cli to your dependencies:
npm install --save-dev @ts-for-gir/cliOr globally install it:
npm install -g @ts-for-gir/cli ts-for-gir --help
$ npx @ts-for-gir/cli --help
TypeScript type definition generator for GObject introspection GIR files
Commands:
ts-for-gir generate [modules..] Generates .d.ts files from GIR for GJS
ts-for-gir list [modules..] Lists all available GIR modules
ts-for-gir copy [modules..] Scan for *.gir files and copy them to a new d
irectory
ts-for-gir doc [modules..] The HTML documentation generator is not yet i
mplemented, but feel free to implement it 🤗
Options:
--version Show version number [boolean]
--help Show help [boolean]To generate the Typescript type definitions of Gtk-4.0 for GJS run:
ts-for-gir generate Gtk-4.0
You can also look at the examples to see how the types are generated there.
$ npx @ts-for-gir/cli generate --help
ts-for-gir generate [modules..]
Generates .d.ts files from GIR for GJS
Options:
--version Show version number [boolean]
--help Show help [boolean]
--modules GIR modules to load, e.g. 'Gio-2.0'. Accepts mul
tiple modules [array] [default: ["*"]]
-g, --girDirectories GIR directories
[array] [default: ["/usr/local/share/gir-1.0","/usr/share/gir-1.0","/usr/share
/*/gir-1.0","/usr/share/gnome-shell","/usr/share/gnome-shell/gir-1.0","/usr/li
b64/mutter-*","/usr/lib/mutter-*","/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mutter-*"]]
--root Root directory of your project
[string] [default: "/home/jumplink/Projekte/gjsify/ts-for-gir"]
-o, --outdir Directory to output to
[string] [default: "./@types"]
-i, --ignore Modules that should be ignored
[array] [default: []]
-v, --verbose Switch on/off the verbose mode
[string] [default: false]
--ignoreVersionConflicts Skip prompts for library version selection when
multiple versions are detected
[string] [default: false]
-p, --print Print the output to console and create no files
[string] [default: false]
--configName Specify a custom name for the configuration file
[string] [default: ".ts-for-girrc.js"]
-d, --noNamespace Do not export all symbols for each module as a n
amespace [string] [default: false]
-n, --noComments Do not generate documentation comments
[string] [default: false]
--promisify Generate promisified functions for async/finish
calls [string] [default: true]
--npmScope Scope of the generated NPM packages
[string] [default: "@girs"]
--workspace Uses the workspace protocol for the generated pa
ckages which can be used with package managers l
ike Yarn and PNPM [string] [default: false]
--onlyVersionPrefix Only use the version prefix for the ambient modu
le exports. This is useful if, for whatever reas
on, you want to use different library versions o
f the same library in your project.
[string] [default: false]
--package Generate the typescript types with package.json
support [string] [default: false]
Examples:
ts-for-gir generate Run 'ts-for-gir generate' in your gj
s project to generate typings for yo
ur project, pass the gir modules you
need for your project
ts-for-gir generate Gtk* You can also use wild cards
ts-for-gir generate '*' If you want to parse all of your loc
ally installed gir modules run
ts-for-gir generate --configName='.ts-fo Use a special config file
r-gir.gtk4.rc.js
ts-for-gir generate --ignore=Gtk-4.0 xra Generate .d.ts. files but not for Gt
ndr-1.3 k-4.0 and xrandr-1.3$ npx @ts-for-gir/cli list --help
ts-for-gir list [modules..]
Lists all available GIR modules
Options:
--version Show version number [boolean]
--help Show help [boolean]
--modules GIR modules to load, e.g. 'Gio-2.0'. Accepts multiple mo
dules [array] [default: ["*"]]
-g, --girDirectories GIR directories
[array] [default: ["/usr/local/share/gir-1.0","/usr/share/gir-1.0","/usr/share
/*/gir-1.0","/usr/share/gnome-shell","/usr/share/gnome-shell/gir-1.0","/usr/li
b64/mutter-*","/usr/lib/mutter-*","/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mutter-*"]]
--root Root directory of your project
[string] [default: "/home/jumplink/Projekte/gjsify/ts-for-gir"]
-i, --ignore Modules that should be ignored [array] [default: []]
--configName Specify a custom name for the configuration file
[string] [default: ".ts-for-girrc.js"]
-v, --verbose Switch on/off the verbose mode [string] [default: false]
Examples:
ts-for-gir list -g ./vala-girs/gir-1.0 Lists all available GIR modules in .
/vala-girs/gir-1.0
ts-for-gir list --ignore=Gtk-3.0 xrandr- Lists all available GIR modules in /
1.3 usr/share/gir-1.0 but not Gtk-3.0 an
d xrandr-1.3$ npx @ts-for-gir/cli doc --help
ts-for-gir doc [modules..]
The HTML documentation generator is not yet implemented, but feel free to implem
ent it 🤗In addition to the option of passing options as a CLI flag, you can also write them in a config file.
To do that, create a new config file called .ts-for-girrc.js in your project root directory, like this:
// or on CommonJs: exports.default = {
export default {
verbose: true,
outdir: '@types',
girDirectories: ['/usr/share/gir-1.0'],
modules: ['*'],
ignore: [],
}The javascript config files must also be in ESM format if you are inside a ESM Package, this is the case if "type": "module" is defined in your package.json. Alternatively, the file can be saved in json format, then it works in both cases.
You can pass the config file name to the CLI using configName.
Directories in which *.gir files are to be searched for. Default is ["/usr/share/gir-1.0"]. More than one can be specified. If you want to generate the types for the GNOME Shell you have to search in several folders for the corresponding types:
girDirectories: [
// General gir files
'/usr/share/gir-1.0',
// GNOME Shell gir file (package: gnome-shell-common / gnome-shell)
'/usr/share/gnome-shell',
'/usr/share/gnome-shell/gir-1.0',
// GNOME Shell gir file dependencies on Fedora Workstation 37 (package: mutter)
'/usr/lib64/mutter-11',
// GNOME Shell gir file dependencies on Ubuntu 22.10 (package: libmutter-11-dev)
'/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mutter-11',
]The outdir option is used to specify the name of the directory where the generated TypeScript types should be saved. The default value of the outdir option is "./@types".
Here is an example of how you can use the outdir option in the CLI of ts-for-gir:
ts-for-gir generate * --outdir ./typesIn this example, the generated TypeScript types will be saved in the ./types directory.
It is important to note that the outdir option should be a valid directory path, and ts-for-gir will create the directory if it does not exist. If the specified directory already contains files, ts-for-gir will overwrite the existing files with the newly generated types.
The ignore CLI option allows you to specify modules that should be ignored when generating TypeScript types. This can be useful if you have multiple versions of a library installed but only want to generate types for one of them.
To use the ignore option, pass one or more module names as arguments. For example, to ignore the Gtk-3.0 module, you would use the following command:
ts-for-gir generate Gtk-* --ignore */Gtk-3.0You can also ignore multiple modules:
ts-for-gir generate * --ignore */Gtk-2.0 */Gtk-3.0 */Gtk-4.0Note that ignoring a module will prevent ts-for-gir from generating types for that module and any submodules that it might contain.
The --verbose or -v option is a flag that can be used to enable verbose output in the console when running the CLI. When this option is enabled, additional warnings and information about the processing of GIR files and the generation of TypeScript definitions will be printed to the console. This information can be useful for debugging purposes or for understanding what is happening behind the scenes when generating the TypeScript definitions.
The ignoreVersionConflicts CLI option allows you to disable the prompt to choose between multiple versions of a .gir file. When multiple versions of a .gir file are found, such as Gtk-3.0.gir and Gtk-4.0.gir, the user is normally asked to select which version to use. However, if the ignoreVersionConflicts option is set, all versions of the file will be loaded without prompt.
This option can be useful in certain scenarios where you want to generate types for all versions of a library, even if there are conflicts between the versions. Note that this may result in type conflicts and other issues, so it should be used with caution.
Another way to disable the prompt and ignore conflicting versions of .gir files is to use the ignore CLI option.
The print CLI option allows you to output the generated TypeScript definitions to the console, instead of saving them to files on disk. This is useful if you want to quickly inspect the generated types without having to save them to disk and open them in an editor.
By default, the print option is disabled and the generated types will be saved to disk. To enable the print option, you can pass the --print flag to the command line interface.
The configName CLI option allows you to specify the name of the configuration file to be used when generating the TypeScript definitions. This option is useful if you want to use a custom configuration file instead of the default one.
By default, ts-for-gir looks for a configuration file named .ts-for-girrc.js in the current directory. If a different configuration file name is required, the configName option can be used to specify the name of the configuration file.
For example, if you have a configuration file named custom-config.js, you can use the following command to generate TypeScript definitions using this configuration file:
ts-for-gir generate * --configName custom-config.jsThis option disables the namespaces for each module type.
- By default the types are exported as a namespace. Namespaces should be used when the types are generated and used in ESM format.
- If imports in
imports.gior CJS format are used, then namespaces should be disabled.
The noComments option for ts-for-gir is a CLI option used to control the generation of TSDoc comments in the generated TypeScript bindings.
When noComments is set to false, ts-for-gir will include TSDoc comments in the generated TypeScript bindings that are based on the comments found in the GObject Introspection (GIR) files. These comments provide helpful information to developers about the usage and behavior of the bindings, making it easier to work with them.
When noComments is set to true, ts-for-gir will not include TSDoc comments in the generated TypeScript bindings. This can be useful if you want to reduce the size of the generated code.
To use the noComments option, pass it as a command line argument to ts-for-gir:
ts-for-gir generate * --noComments`The --package option of ts-for-gir is used to package the generated TypeScript type definitions into an NPM package. The generated package can be easily installed and used in other TypeScript projects via npm install.
Another advantage is NPM packages is, that you can use them in a monorepo using a package manager with support for workspaces such as Yarn, PNPM and Lerna. To use the generated packages in a monorepo, you can add them as dependencies to your project's package.json file, and use relative file paths or the file: protocol to point to the local package directories. This way, you can import the generated types from within your project like any other TypeScript module.
When this option is used, each GObject introspection module will be packaged into its own NPM package. The package name will be in the format of @girs/<lower case module name>-<version>.
For example, if the --package option is used to generate the TypeScript type definitions for the Gtk-4.0 module, then the generated NPM package will have the name @girs/gtk-3.0.
You can change the NPM package scope name with the
--npmScopeoption.
To use the generated NPM package in your TypeScript project, you can also install our pregenerated packages:
npm install @girs/gtk-3.0Then, import the desired module in your TypeScript code:
import Gtk from '@girs/gtk-4.0';
const button = new Gtk.Button();It is recommended to use the --package option when generating TypeScript type definitions for a GObject introspection module, as it allows for easy distribution and consumption of the generated types. However, please note that the generated NPM packages will only work with a package manager like NPM or Yarn, and cannot be used directly in a GJS or Node.js project.
Here are some examples are making use of the
--packageoption:
- examples/gjs/gio-2-cat-packages - GJS example with
--packageoption- examples/node-gtk/gio-2-cat-packages - node-gtk example with
--packageoption
The --npmScope CLI option can be used to specify a custom NPM package scope name for the generated packages. By default, the scope name is @girs.
Here's an example command to generate NPM packages with a custom scope name:
ts-for-gir --buildType lib --package --npmScope my-scopeThis command will generate NPM packages with the scope my-scope instead of the default @girs scope. For Gtk-4.0 this would generate a package with the name of @my-scope/gtk-4.0.
In TypeScript, ambient modules are a way to define external modules that are not part of the TypeScript codebase. This can be useful for importing external libraries or modules, including those generated by ts-for-gir using the gi:// syntax.
If you want to have support for ambient modules, then you have to enable the --package option, this will generate a NPM package for each module.
Alternatively, you can also use the pre-generated NPM packages for this, so you don't even need to use ts-for-gir for it. For example, look at the NPM packages gtk-4.0, gio-2.0 and adw-1. All pre-generated NPM packages can be found on gjsify/types.
The advantage of self-generated types is that you generate the types exactly for your locally installed library version. However, we try to keep the pre-generated NPM packages as up to date as possible.
To use ambient modules, the ambient.d.ts file must be imported either in the code like import '@girs/gjs/ambient' or by adding an entry to the includes property in the tsconfig file. The ambient.d.ts file is automatically generated.
// tsconfig.json
{
"compilerOptions": {
"lib": ["ESNext"],
"types": [],
"target": "ESNext",
"module": "ESNext"
},
"include": ["@girs/gjs", "@girs/gjs/ambient"],
"files": [
"main.ts",
]
}Here are some examples demonstrating the usage of ambient modules:
- examples/gjs/gio-2-cat-packages - GJS example with
--packageoption- examples/node-gtk/gio-2-cat-packages - node-gtk example with
--packageoption
Some ambient modules declarations are only defined with the version specifier to prevent version conflicts e.g. between Gtk-3.0 and Gtk-4.0. If you want to import the modules without the version specifier you can define the module declarations by yourself, similarly to this:
// gtk4-ambient.d.ts
declare module "gi://Gtk" {
import Gtk from "gi://Gtk?version=4.0";
export default Gtk;
}