Why using JS classes instead of Typescript interfaces?

#discuss #typescript #javascript

As you know, in Typescript one might use JS classes as interfaces.

interface Post {
  title: string;
}

class Post {
  title: string;
}

What are the advantages of using classes (if any) instead of interfaces?

Top comments (3)

Rico Brase • Jul 31 '20

Usually in Typescript, interfaces are used to describe the structure of an object, just as in your example.

classes usually contain actual behaviour code in them. In default configuration (strict: true), Typescript will complain about

class Post {
  title: string;
}

with the following error message:

Property 'title' has no initializer and is not definitely assigned in the constructor.

Additionally, interfaces are purely used in type-checking, since they don't exist in Javascript - they don't get any compilation output! If you create a post.ts file and fill it with your example code from above, your compiled post.js file will only contain

class Post {
}

Pragmatic Maciej • Jul 31 '20

Class has runtime representation whereas interface hasn't. It means that when you make a Class you get type + value constructor by "new" keyword. In other hand when you make an interface you have type but no value constructor, so you need to make the value separately.