Typescript cannot find name even though it is referenced

Question

I have an angular project I'm writing in typescript. This worked well for me under VS, and now I'm trying the same with Node.JS under webstorm.

I have a progressor class, in a progressor.ts file:

export class Progressor{     public tasks: any;      constructor(){         this.tasks = {};     }     ... } 

and I have my main controller, which uses this class:

/// <reference path="../progressor.ts" />  declare var angular: any; // I'm trying to eliminate these... declare var Papa: any; declare var $: any;  class MainController{     constructor($scope: any){         $scope.progressor = null;         $scope.filesDropped = function(files, rejectedFiles){             if(!files || !files.length)                 return;              $scope.progressor = new Progressor();             // ...         }     }; } 

Note that this is not Node.JS code - it is simply part of a Node.JS project.

The relative reference path is correct. When I try to compile it using:

tsc mainController.ts --module amd --target es5 

I get an error: Cannot find name Progressor.

I don't understand what's the problem... I've been having nothing but trouble with my Node.JS project so far, and I'm considering giving up on TS altogether for this project. First of all - can anyone tell me why it won't compile? Note that I want each TS file to be compiled separately, so I can debug them comfortably via Chrome.

Answer 1

If you've exported something, you need to import it in order to consume it, not <reference ... it.

Replace the <reference comment with import prog = require('./progressor');, then you can use e.g. new prog.Progressor().

You might consider using export = Progressor so that the exported object from the other file is the class itself instead of a container.

Answer 2

After a while more of searching, I stumbled upon this: TypeScript Modules. After consulting it, I tried placing both my classes inside module{ } blocks, which solved the problem. I'm still slightly confused as to why the language would require me to use modules for multi-file usage... but for now it will do.