Re-export module namespace as global

We’re attempting to migrate users within Google to new @types typings, which move most typings into modules, and having a ton of trouble. The basic problem is that a module (e.g. CodeMirror) used to declare a global complex interface:

declare function CodeMirror(...);
declare namespace CodeMirror { ... }

and now they are modules:

export = CodeMirror;

and other typings refer to them as modules (so we can’t just undo that export statement) but we also have tons of older user code that doesn’t refer to them as modules. Ideally we’d be able to make it work both ways while we migrate users incrementally.

I appreciate that you don’t want the language to make this convenient, but I’m having difficulty finding any way to make it work temporarily while we migrate.

Some things I tried:

1. Aliasing the module into the global namespace

declare global {
  import CodeMirror = require('codemirror');
}

(and other variants) fails with “Imports are not permitted in module augmentations.”.

1. Making the module global first, then aliasing it into a module namespace. If you wrap the file contents with a “declare global {”, then I couldn’t figure out a way to repackage that global as a module again. The export = CodeMirror; fails with “Cannot find name ‘CodeMirror’.” despite the global CodeMirror being declared in the same file.

Do you have any advice? Note that “export as namespace” doesn’t help because our user code is already modules, not scripts.

[blakeembrey]

How about something like this? Have a file that declares all the globals (assuming I’m reading the requirement right).

import * as _foo from 'foo'

declare global {
  var foo: typeof _foo;
}

[fightingcat]

import * as _foo from 'foo'
declare global {
  var foo: typeof _foo;
}

It doesn’t work with let something: foo.SomeType, claim Cannot find namespace 'foo'.