Typescript enum switch not working

The issue here has to do with typescript's (numeric) literal types. When you do this assignment:

var editMode = EditMode.Edit

TypeScript evaluates the type as:

var editMode: 1 = EditMode.Edit

Now, when you compare a value that typescript knows must be 1 (EditMode.Edit) to a value that it knows must be 0 (EditMode.View), it sees all this as a type-safety violation. If the variable editMode weren't an enum, typescript would merely complain, but since it's an enum, which doesn't really exist in javascript, typescript gets to control the transpilation in such a way that it actually throws an error.
So you have 2 options. So you can either coerce editMode to be a number or to be an EditMode (i.e. any of the values EditMode is permitted to be, not just the one assigned to editMode the variable).
Personally, I prefer to coerce it to be an EditMode, because it feels more type-safe.

To go the number route, you can do the following, which was previously mentioned:

switch(+editMode)

To go the EditMode route (which I recommend), you can pass it to a function as was mentioned, but sometimes it's a little cleaner to not write a function. If that's the case here, then you can again coerce the type in the switch statement:

switch(editMode as EditMode)

Do whichever you prefer, but I just like the clarity of explicitly saying "this variable is being treated as an EditMode" as opposed to "this variable is supposed to actually be a number, not an Enum".


TypeScript version 3.7.5

this code worked for me

enum Seasons {
    Winter,
    Spring,
    Summer,
    Autum
  }

switch (+Seasons.Winter) {
    case Seasons.Winter:
        console.log('weather is cold');
        break;
    case Seasons.Spring:
        console.log('weather is spring');
        break;
    case Seasons.Summer:
        console.log('weather is summer');
        break;
    default:
        break;
}

visual studio code: seasons

or you can declare a constant and use as param for switch statement

const season: Seasons = Seasons.Winter
switch (+season) {
    case Seasons.Winter:
        console.log('weather is cold');
        break;
    case Seasons.Spring:
        console.log('weather is spring');
        break;
    case Seasons.Summer:
        console.log('weather is summer');
        break;
    default:
        break;
}

enter image description here


i have found why i does happen. somewhere in the code there is a activation function (i am using durandal) which passes this enum as a string (the function has the parameter marked as a enum but still it is a string). this is why my switch statement fails. i simply converted the value to a number and now everything works as expected. thanks anyways


I also had this problem. Easy way to get around it: add a + sign before your variable in the switch, i.e.

switch (+editMode) {
    case EditMode.Delete:
        ...
        break;
    case EditMode.Edit:
        ...
        break;
    default:
        ...
        break;
    }