When I autogenerate the interfaces, relation fields are typed as entity OR string, and this is correct, since I may be getting an ID or the actual entity, for example:

author: string | User;

While this is technically correct, when I try to work with the data, for example get the author ID, I cannot use

entity.author.id

when I try to do that I get an error stating that "string" does not have an ID property. This error message is correct as the author field might be a string

However, this forces some ugly code, as instead of

entity.author.id

i have to use

(entity.author as User).id

and this issue componds as I go deeper into the data, for example:

((entity.author as User).media as Media).url

Is there a nicer way to handle this?

angelok2741last year
This in on the roadmap:
https://github.com/payloadcms/payload/discussions/1563
tantalum1972last year
Thanks, so I'm guessing my solution would be to remove the "string | " part from the generated file, fix it every time I regenerate (as the compiler would definitely remind me) - and wait until the fix is released... I can do that 🙂

Thanks again

jarrod_not_jared

last year

@tantalum you could use a typeguard to ease your pains as well, something like this:

// this function could be adjusted as you see fit
export function isExpandedDoc<T>(doc: any): doc is T {
  if (typeof doc === 'object') return true;
  return false;
}

function YourFunction(user: User | string) {
  if (isExpandedDoc<User>(user)) {
    // expanded object can now be used
    const userID = user.id;
  }
}

tantalum1972last year
This is nice, I'll keep it in mind. In my use case, some of these documents go directly to template bindings, so I'd rather not have extra code, but it will sure come in handy in other use cases. Thank you again 🙂

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