@types/countdown toString Unrecognised

[ChrisTalman]

There seems to be an issue with @types/countdown. I receive the following error from TypeScript.

ERROR in ./src/modules/Initialise.ts
(85,64): error TS2349: Cannot invoke an expression whose type lacks a call signature. Type '((radix?: number) => string) | ((label?: string) => string)' has no compatible call signatures.

The code which causes this error is as follows.

countdown(Date.now(), Date.now() + timeout).toString();

So far as I am aware, this is perfectly valid code, which works in the compiled JavaScript. However, TypeScript does not seem to understand it. Could there be a problem in the declaration file?

@gjuchault and @andy-ms seem to have been involved with this declaration file.

[ghost]

Looks like microsoft/TypeScript#7294.
countdown returns TimeSpan | number, which have different signatures for toString(). The call here should be compatible with either, but TS can't figure that out.
However, the docs say The return value is a Timespan object and don't mention returning a number, so maybe the type definition is wrong?

[orta]

Hi thread, we're moving DefinitelyTyped to use GitHub Discussions for conversations the @types modules in DefinitelyTyped.

To help with the transition, we're closing all issues which haven't had activity in the last 6 months, which includes this issue. If you think closing this issue is a mistake, please pop into the TypeScript Community Discord and mention the issue in the definitely-typed channel.