How does it work? | typescript-transformer | Spatie

 SPATIE

  TypeScript Transformer
=========================

spatie.be/open-source

  [Docs](https://spatie.be/docs)  [Typescript-transformer](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3)  Watch-mode  How does it work?

 Version   v3   v2   v1

 Other versions for crawler [v3](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3) [v2](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v2) [v1](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v1)

  How does it work?
- [ Introduction ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/introduction)
- [ Postcardware ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/postcardware)
- [ Installation ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/installation)
- [ Questions &amp; issues ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/questions-and-issues)
- [ Changelog ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/changelog)
- [ About us ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/about-us)

Getting started
---------------

- [ Setting up ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/getting-started/setting-up)
- [ Running TypeScript Transformer for the first time ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/getting-started/first-run)
- [ Special attributes ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/getting-started/attributes)
- [ Typing properties ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/getting-started/typing-properties)
- [ Replacing common types ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/getting-started/replacing-types)
- [ Formatters ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/getting-started/formatters)

Laravel
-------

- [ Installation and setup ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/laravel/installation-and-setup)
- [ Laravel Data ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/laravel/laravel-data)
- [ Controllers ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/laravel/controllers)
- [ Routes ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/laravel/routes)
- [ Route filters ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/laravel/route-filters)
- [ Watch mode ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/laravel/watch-mode)

Custom transformers
-------------------

- [ Getting started ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/transformers/getting-started)
- [ Class transformer ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/transformers/class-transformer)
- [ Enum transformer ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/transformers/enum-transformer)

Transformed providers
---------------------

- [ Getting started ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/providers/getting-started)
- [ Using different writers in providers ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/providers/writers-in-providers)
- [ Logging in providers ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/providers/logging)
- [ Referencing types ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/providers/references)
- [ Helpers ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/providers/helpers)

TypeScript nodes
----------------

- [ Introduction ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/typescript-nodes/introduction)
- [ Building your own TypeScript node ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/typescript-nodes/custom-nodes)
- [ Visiting TypeScript nodes ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/typescript-nodes/visitor)
- [ Node reference ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/typescript-nodes/reference)

Watch mode
----------

- [ How does it work? ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/watch-mode/how-it-works)
- [ Setting up the runner ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/watch-mode/setting-up-the-runner)
- [ Watch events ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/watch-mode/watch-events)
- [ PHP Nodes ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/watch-mode/php-nodes)

Advanced
--------

- [ Extensions ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/advanced/extensions)
- [ Managing transformers ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/advanced/managing-transformers)
- [ Loggers ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/advanced/loggers)
- [ Custom writers ](https://spatie.be/docs/typescript-transformer/v3/advanced/custom-writers)

 How does it work?
=================

TypeScript transformer can run in a watch mode where it will watch for changes in your PHP files and automatically regenerate the TypeScript files when a change is detected.

> While this is possibly one of the coolest features of the package it is still heavily experimental and might not work in all environments and not always as expected. Feel free to open issues when you encounter problems with a demo project and an exact plan of steps to reproduce the issue.

In order to be able to watch for changes, the package uses chokidar, a package that is able to watch for file changes in a cross-platform way. You'll need to install it as such:

```
npm install chokidar
```

Or using yarn:

```
yarn add chokidar
```

When running the package in watch mode, it will start a master process which will start a worker process, the idea here is that the master process always keeps running while the worker process can be restarted when a change is detected which requires a full application reload.

In order to not always having to reload the full application (and thus starting a new worker) on every file change, the worker process will smartly swap the Reflection instances used throughout TypeScript transformer when a file change is detected.

This is the reason why we don't provide Reflection\* instances throughout the package, but rather wrapper classes around these instances. The initial data is loaded by PHP's Reflection API, but afterwards the `roave/better-reflection`package is used to create in-memory representations of the changed classes.

To make it easy to swap these different types of Reflection instance the package provides Php\*Node wrapper classes like:

- PhpClassNode
- PhpPropertyNode
- PhpMethodNode
- PhpParameterNode
- And more...

When your provider however needs something else than the reflection instances provided by these wrapper classes, for example, checking the container for an instance or the router for the current application routes, you'll need to restart the worker process in order to get the updated state of your application. We'll come back to this later.

 A good
match?
-------------

### What we do best

- All things Laravel
- Custom frontend components
- Building APIs
- AI-powered features
- Simplifying things
- Clean solutions
- Integrating services

### Not our cup of tea

- WordPress themes
- Cutting corners
- Free mockups to win a job
- "Just execute the briefing"

 In short: we'd like to be a **substantial part** of your project.

 [ Get in touch via email ](mailto:info@spatie.be?subject=A%20good%20match%21&body=Tell%20us%20as%20much%20as%20you%20can%20about%0A-%20your%20online%20project%0A-%20your%20planning%0A-%20your%20budget%0A-%20%E2%80%A6%0A%0AAnything%20that%20helps%20us%20to%20start%20straightforward%21)
