TypeScript is transpiled into JavaScript using a compiler.
TypeScript being converted into JavaScript means it runs anywhere that JavaScript runs!
TypeScript has an official compiler which can be installed through npm.
Learn more about npm, and how to get started here: What is npm?
Within your npm project, run the following command to install the compiler:
npm install typescript --save-dev
npm install -g typescript
Which should give you an output similar to:
added 1 package, and audited 2 packages in 2s found 0 vulnerabilities.
The compiler is installed in the node_modules
directory and can be run with: npx tsc
.
tsc -v
Version 5.3.3
By default the TypeScript compiler will print a help message when run in an empty project.
The compiler can be configured using a tsconfig.json
file.
You can have TypeScript create tsconfig.json
with the recommended settings with:
npx tsc --init
Which should give you an output similar to:
Created a new tsconfig.json with:
TS
target: es2016
module: commonjs
strict: true e
sModuleInterop: true
skipLibCheck: true
forceConsistentCasingInFileNames: true
You can learn more at https://aka.ms/tsconfig.json
Here is an example of more things you could add to the tsconfig.json file:
{
"compilerOptions": {
"target": "ES2016",
"module": "CommonJS",
"moduleResolution": "node",
"baseUrl": "./src",
"outDir": "./dist",
"sourceMap": true,
"noImplicitAny": true
},
"include": ["src/**/*"]
}
tsc
tsc --watch
You can open the file in an editor to add those options. This will configure the TypeScript compiler to transpile TypeScript files located in the src/
directory of your project, into JavaScript files in the build/
directory.