Name Conflicts Between Categories

Name Conflicts Between Categories

helpers4 is split into independent npm packages — one per category. Each package can be installed and tree-shaken independently. A deliberate consequence of this design is that the same function name can exist in multiple categories when the operation makes sense for different data types.

This is not a bug. compact for arrays and compact for objects are genuinely different operations, and merging them into a single overloaded function would break tree-shaking and make the types less precise.

Known Conflicts

Auto-generated from the current build — always reflects the documented version.

Function	Categories
compact	array, object
compare	date, version
difference	array, date
shallowEquals	array, object

Resolving Conflicts

When you need two helpers with the same name in the same file, rename one (or both) at the import site using the as keyword.

Recommended naming convention

Suffix with 4{category} — consistent with the helpers4 naming identity:

import { compact as compact4array } from '@helpers4/array';
import { compact as compact4object } from '@helpers4/object';

const numbers = compact4array([0, 1, null, 2, undefined]);
// => [1, 2]

const user = compact4object({ id: 1, name: null, role: undefined });
// => { id: 1 }

All conflicts — resolution examples

compact

import { compact as compact4array } from '@helpers4/array';
import { compact as compact4object } from '@helpers4/object';

compare

import { compare as compare4date } from '@helpers4/date';
import { compare as compare4version } from '@helpers4/version';

difference

import { difference as difference4array } from '@helpers4/array';
import { difference as difference4date } from '@helpers4/date';

shallowEquals

import { shallowEquals as shallowEquals4array } from '@helpers4/array';
import { shallowEquals as shallowEquals4object } from '@helpers4/object';

Alternative: namespace import

If you use many helpers from both conflicting categories, a namespace import is more concise — but check that your bundler handles namespace tree-shaking (esbuild, Rollup, and Vite all do):

import * as A from '@helpers4/array';
import * as O from '@helpers4/object';

A.compact([0, 1, null]);
O.compact({ a: 1, b: null });

Note

Prefer named as imports for maximum tree-shaking compatibility with all bundlers, including older Webpack 4 configurations.

Why not a single unified package?

The @helpers4/all bundle does export every category. Inside a single module context, the category name is not part of the export, so the last export * wins when two categories export the same name.

This means you cannot safely import { compact } from '@helpers4/all' if both array and object export compact — the result is undefined behavior depending on module bundler internals.

Always use per-category packages (@helpers4/array, @helpers4/object, …) when you need conflicting helpers. They are the canonical import source.

Design rationale

See Philosophy — Category independence for a deeper explanation of why cross-category deduplication is intentionally avoided.