[typescript] How to declare a type as nullable in TypeScript?

I have an interface in TypeScript.

interface Employee{
    id: number;
    name: string;
    salary: number;
}

I would like to make salary as a nullable field (Like we can do in C#). Is this possible to do in TypeScript?

i had this same question a while back.. all types in ts are nullable, because void is a subtype of all types (unlike, for example, scala).

see if this flowchart helps - https://github.com/bcherny/language-types-comparison#typescript

Just add a question mark ? to the optional field.

interface Employee{
   id: number;
   name: string;
   salary?: number;
}

You can just implement a user-defined type like the following:

type Nullable<T> = T | undefined | null;

var foo: Nullable<number> = 10; // ok
var bar: Nullable<number> = true; // type 'true' is not assignable to type 'Nullable<number>'
var baz: Nullable<number> = null; // ok

var arr1: Nullable<Array<number>> = [1,2]; // ok
var obj: Nullable<Object> = {}; // ok

 // Type 'number[]' is not assignable to type 'string[]'. 
 // Type 'number' is not assignable to type 'string'
var arr2: Nullable<Array<string>> = [1,2];

Union type is in my mind best option in this case:

interface Employee{
   id: number;
   name: string;
   salary: number | null;
}

// Both cases are valid
let employe1: Employee = { id: 1, name: 'John', salary: 100 };
let employe2: Employee = { id: 1, name: 'John', salary: null };

EDIT : For this to work as expected, you should enable the strictNullChecks in tsconfig.

To be more C# like, define the Nullable type like this:

type Nullable<T> = T | null;

interface Employee{
   id: number;
   name: string;
   salary: Nullable<number>;
}

Bonus:

To make Nullable behave like a built in Typescript type, define it in a global.d.ts definition file in the root source folder. This path worked for me: /src/global.d.ts

type MyProps = {
  workoutType: string | null;
};

Nullable type can invoke runtime error. So I think it's good to use a compiler option --strictNullChecks and declare number | null as type. also in case of nested function, although input type is null, compiler can not know what it could break, so I recommend use !(exclamination mark).

function broken(name: string | null): string {
  function postfix(epithet: string) {
    return name.charAt(0) + '.  the ' + epithet; // error, 'name' is possibly null
  }
  name = name || "Bob";
  return postfix("great");
}

function fixed(name: string | null): string {
  function postfix(epithet: string) {
    return name!.charAt(0) + '.  the ' + epithet; // ok
  }
  name = name || "Bob";
  return postfix("great");
}

Reference. https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/advanced-types.html#type-guards-and-type-assertions