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Show how to @overload function annotations in user code
The docs say `@override` doesn't work in user code, but it seems to work in mypy 0.470. The update may be waiting on python#2603, but that PR does not seem to include doc updates, so feel free to put this patch in that PR.
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Function overloading in stubs | ||
============================= | ||
Function Overloading | ||
==================== | ||
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Sometimes you have a library function that seems to call for two or | ||
more signatures. That's okay -- you can define multiple *overloaded* | ||
instances of a function with the same name but different signatures in | ||
a stub file (this feature is not supported for user code, at least not | ||
yet) using the ``@overload`` decorator. For example, we can define an | ||
``abs`` function that works for both ``int`` and ``float`` arguments: | ||
Sometimes the types in a function depend on each other in ways that can't be | ||
captured with a simple ``Union``. For example, the ``__getitem__`` (``[]`` bracket | ||
indexing) method can take an integer and return a single item, or take a ``slice`` | ||
and return a ``Sequence`` of items. You might be tempted to annotate it like so: | ||
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.. code-block:: python | ||
# This is a stub file! | ||
class Seq(Generic[T], Sequence[T]): | ||
def __getitem__(self, index: Union[int, slice]) -> Union[T, Sequence[T]]: | ||
pass | ||
But this is a little loose, as it implies that when you put in an ``int`` you might | ||
sometimes get out a single item or sometimes a sequence. To capture a constraint | ||
such as a return type that depends on a parameter type, we can use | ||
`overloading <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0484/#function-method-overloading>`_ | ||
to give the same function multiple type annotations (signatures). | ||
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from typing import overload | ||
@overload | ||
def abs(n: int) -> int: pass | ||
@overload | ||
def abs(n: float) -> float: pass | ||
.. code-block:: python | ||
Note that we can't use ``Union[int, float]`` as the argument type, | ||
since this wouldn't allow us to express that the return | ||
type depends on the argument type. | ||
from typing import Generic, Sequence, overload | ||
T = TypeVar('T') | ||
Now if we import ``abs`` as defined in the above library stub, we can | ||
write code like this, and the types are inferred correctly: | ||
class Seq(Generic[T], Sequence[T]): | ||
@overload # These are just for the type checker, and overwritten by the real implementation | ||
def __getitem__(self, index: int) -> T: | ||
pass | ||
.. code-block:: python | ||
@overload # All overloads and the implementation must be adjacent in the source file, and overload order may matter | ||
def __getitem__(self, index: slice) -> Sequence[T]: | ||
pass | ||
n = abs(-2) # 2 (int) | ||
f = abs(-1.5) # 1.5 (float) | ||
def __getitem__(self, index): # Actual implementation goes last, and does *not* get type hints or @overload decorator | ||
if isinstance(index, int): | ||
... | ||
elif isinstance(index, slice): | ||
... | ||
Overloaded function variants are still ordinary Python functions and | ||
they still define a single runtime object. The following code is | ||
thus valid: | ||
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.. code-block:: python | ||
my_abs = abs | ||
my_abs(-2) # 2 (int) | ||
my_abs(-1.5) # 1.5 (float) | ||
they still define a single runtime object. There is no multiple dispatch | ||
happening, and you must manually handle the different types (usually with | ||
:func:`isinstance` checks). | ||
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The overload variants must be adjacent in the code. This makes code | ||
clearer, as you don't have to hunt for overload variants across the | ||
file. | ||
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Overloads in stub files are exactly the same, except of course there is no | ||
implementation. | ||
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.. note:: | ||
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As generic type variables are erased at runtime when constructing | ||
instances of generic types, an overloaded function cannot have | ||
variants that only differ in a generic type argument, | ||
e.g. ``List[int]`` versus ``List[str]``. | ||
e.g. ``List[int]`` and ``List[str]``. | ||
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.. note:: | ||
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If you are writing a regular module rather than a stub, you can | ||
often use a type variable with a value restriction to represent | ||
functions as ``abs`` above (see :ref:`type-variable-value-restriction`). | ||
If you just need to constrain a type variable to certain types or subtypes, | ||
you can use a :ref:`value restriction <type-variable-value-restriction>`). |