microsoft
typing for navigator.clipboard
⚙ Compilation target
ES5
⚙ Library
None
Missing / Incorrect Definition
lib.dom.ts defines interface Navigator with:
`/**
- Available only in secure contexts.
- MDN Reference */ readonly clipboard: Clipboard;`
This allows writing code like navigator.clipboard.readText() which crashes in unsecure environments (over HTTP).
Fix suggestion: Change the return type in typing to Clipboard | null to force a null check in consuming code. This is kind of a breaking change but that's the point.
Sample Code
navigator.clipboard.readText() ;will crash over HTTP
Documentation Link
No response
This is intentional. There are a lot of calls like this that only work in a secure context. If you know your code is always going to run over HTTPS, it would be incredibly annoying and counterproductive if the compiler forced you do either do a null check or add a non-null assertion to every such call.
See also https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/52044 which was marked WAI.
Thanks for those links @fatcerberus but in my humble opinion, the "it works in secure context" argument is not much better than a "but it works on my machine" argument. Those that don't care about running in contexts where the property can be null are free to use optional chaining or non-null assertion (if they want to assert they really don't care). A single character isn't counter-productive or something that causes clutter. A false assurance on the other hand is bad for people who care.
“but it works on my machine”
This is a bad analogy because HTTP/HTTPS is a server-side concern and not something that would be affected by end-user configuration.
Anyway I’m just telling you the position of the TS maintainers on this - it’s not considered a bug for the reasons stated before and that’s not likely to change.
This issue has been marked as "Working as Intended" and has seen no recent activity. It has been automatically closed for house-keeping purposes.
