The any
type is a so-called wildcard - it allows substituting any other type. Its characteristic feature is that it can be assumed to represent any other type. You can reference any field or function of an object marked as any
, and the compiler won't raise an error.
The issue is that it loses typing, which is the most significant advantage of TypeScript over JavaScript. It means there's no checking of variable types, which can lead to hard-to-detect errors occurring only in runtime.
const randomObject = {anotherField: "value"}; console.info(randomObject.anotherField) // value console.info((randomObject as any).another.field) // TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'field')
The compiler didn't report an error when accessing the another
field in the randomObject
object because any
allows assuming that the object has any properties. The TypeError
is thrown only in runtime.
In summary - it's not advisable to use any
in TypeScript code, and in the vast majority of cases, its usage isn't necessary.