[tigershark]

For example in typescript this is valid:

    type A = {name: string}
    type B = {name: string}
    function print(obj: A) { alert(obj.name);}
    let a: A = {name: “hello”};
    let b: B = {name: “world”}
    print(a);
    print(b);

This is because of typescript structural equality and I think that the same applies to flow given your link. Obviously if I want a function to accept an email I don’t want the same function to accept an address, but in typescript you can’t guarantee it because you have no way to get rid of structural equality as far as I understood.

[jamesisaac]

Ah I see. That can be achieved since Flow 0.51 with opaque types[1][2]. It seems like TypeScript hasn't yet caught up with this functionality[3].

[1] https://medium.com/flow-type/hiding-implementation-details-w...

[2] https://flow.org/en/docs/types/opaque-types/

[3] https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/issues/15807#issueco...

[tigershark]

Yup that seems to help.

[zeugmasyllepsis]

I'm certainly not well versed in OCaml, but my understanding is that it is also structurally typed. This particular example would also be permitted in OCaml, correct?

[octachron]

No, records are nominally typed in OCaml, thus the two types `A` and `B` would be deemed incompatible.

[wtetzner]

But objects in OCaml are structurally typed (well, row typed).