Feature request: Allow prefixing generated type names

[csimmons0]

It would be great if we could simply add a line to buf.gen.yaml that made the generator add a prefix to the generated types' names. For example, I would just say typesPrefix: "Pb" in the yaml file, and then for this proto enum:

enum Foo {
  ...
}

the generated TS code would be

export enum PbFoo {
  ...
}

Same for message types and their TS classes. The motivation for this request is to avoid name collisions between generated TS types and manually-written types that correspond to them. Without this feature I have to manually alias names when I import them, as in

import {Foo as PbFoo} from ...

[JosephusPaye]

This would be quite useful to have. In our case we're generating wrapper classes that provide an API similar to v1 and protobuf-js, and having the base types prefixed would be handy.

[timostamm]

I understand the use case - I've maintained code bases before that had to use import aliases. But this feature isn't without drawbacks:

• Plugins that reference protoc-gen-es generated code will have to support this option as well, and users will have to remember to set them.
• We already suffix names - descriptors have the "Schema" suffix, and JSON types have the "Json" suffix. With a prefix, names become very wordy.
• Well-known types are usually pre-generated and can't be prefixed, but it is possible to generate them locally. A prefix adds complexity.

The inconvenience of import aliases is real, but the feature doesn't enable new use cases. Because of the drawbacks and the added maintenance costs, we are not going to support this feature.

As an alternative, we suggest the following options:

1. Use a wildcard type import (it won't affect bundle sizes): import type * as pb from "./example_pb".
2. Write a plugin that generates type aliases with prefixed names. It should be relatively simple to implement (see the guide in the manual), and gives great control.