How to extract brief JSON representation of a type?

[gabrielgrant]

Type.toString() returns a string-ified version of the concise-syntax representation of that type (similar to what could be passed to type()):

eg

const device = type({
	platform: "'android' | 'ios'",
	"versions?": "(number | string)[]"
})
const user = type({
	name: "string",
	device: device,
	"placeOfBirth?": "string"
})

console.log(user.toString())
// { device: { platform: "android" | "ios", versions?: (number | string)[] }, name: string, placeOfBirth?: string }

Is there a way to extract that from a type as a JS/JSON value, rather than as a flattened string? Both .json and .toJSON() return the more verbose/structured internal representation:

{
  required: [
    { key: 'device', value: [Object] },
    { key: 'name', value: 'string' }
  ],
  optional: [ { key: 'placeOfBirth', value: 'string' } ],
  domain: 'object'
}

While useful, it would also be great to a representation of arktype's amazing concise syntax out

[ssalbdivad]

Eventually, I'd like to be able to generate a canonical definition from an arbitrary type. Would also be happy to accept contributions on this feature:

#818

That said, this kind of definition would be optimized for visual clarity when printed (like the string), but would not be traversable at all (containing unparsed strings etc.). Being able to recreate a def from an arbitrary node would be useful in some cases to pass back into ArkType, especially for testing, but I'd expect its utility to be fairly limited externally?

Alternatively, you could use toJsonSchema if you want a familiar representation, although it wouldn't be guaranteed to be less verbose.

[gabrielgrant]

Ah, had missed that issue -- thanks for flagging!

Yes, in most cases I agree the traversable internal JSON representation is more useful, but in the particular cases I'm envisioning, I'm specifically looking to get the "amazing ArkType" syntax out (eg once #1159 lands, converting an imported JSON Schema def into a pretty ArkType def that could be further edited in TS source)