Preserving function names when generating JavaScript from TypeScript

Question

Currently, when you compile something like the following TypeScript program:

class Foo {
    Bar(): void {}
}

it generates the following JavaScript:

var Foo = (function () {
    function Foo() {
    }
    Foo.prototype.Bar = function () { };
    return Foo;
}());

The Bar method is declared as an anonymous function. Is there any way to make TypeScript generate Bar as a named function? I'd prefer something like the following:

var Foo = (function () {
    function Foo() {
    }
    Foo.prototype.Bar = function Bar() { };
    return Foo;
}());

This would make it possible to do proper inspection of method names at runtime.

Update

After opening this issue on TypeScript's github repo, I got a response stating that:

This is actually an ES6 spec compliance problem since ES6 class method names do get populated as expected.

The issue was added as a bug, so it appears the TypeScript team will be adding support for preserving function names.

Answer 1

If you don't mind about the methods being assigned to the instance instead of the prototype then you can do this:

class Foo {
    Bar = function Bar(): void { }
}

Which will compiled to:

var Foo = (function () {
    function Foo() {
        this.Bar = function Bar() { };
    }
    return Foo;
}());