Warn on Unassigned `==` Expression as Statement
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Description
Original report by scoutoss on Launchpad:
Working with some NumPy code recently, I accidentally wrote this:
<build output array>
<build mask array>
out[mask] == NaN # This should have been a single `=`, not a ==.
return out
After a few minutes of debugging my NaN-less array, I realized that I had accidentally written == instead of =, turning my assignment statement into no-op comparison operator.
I'd be nice if PyFlakes gave a warning for a statement that's just an expression performing an equality comparison. There are very few cases where I'd expect that something like this is doing what the author intended.
A more aggressive version of this check would be to warn on any expression that's just a binary operator. The assumption there would be that the "statement" a + b is at best dead code, and at worst an operator with a highly non-obvious side-effect.
I'd be happy to work on either version of this if there's support for it.
Contributor guide
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First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by locating how PyFlakes handles standalone expression statements and where its warning tests are defined. Compare the requested equality-comparison warning with the broader binary-operator alternative in the issue, then determine a focused behavior and add coverage showing the intended warning and non-warning cases.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- tooling
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 45/100