Exhaustiveness checking fails on non-trivial use of pattern matching
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 20.6k
- Forks
- 3.3k
- PR merge metrics
- PR metrics pending
Description
Code using assert_never() to ensure exhaustive use of match-case yields a type error on many non-trivial cases.
mypy can only verify exhaustiveness when matching directly against a Union type or Enum value.
Though, proving the exhaustiveness of non-trivial matches may be beyond mypy domain. Here are a couple of examples for the sake of argument:
Matching on both [] and [x, *xs] on Sequence will not narrow the type
from collections.abc import Sequence
from typing import assert_never
def my_sum(s: Sequence[float]) -> float:
match s:
case []:
return 0
case [num, *rest]:
return num + my_sum(rest)
case _ as u:
# error: Argument 1 to "assert_never" has incompatible type "Sequence[float]"; expected "NoReturn"
return assert_never(u)
Matching against all Enum values that a single-member wrapper class may contain
import dataclasses, enum
from typing import assert_never, final
class E(enum.Enum):
A = enum.auto()
B = enum.auto()
@final
@dataclasses.dataclass(frozen=True)
class Foo:
x: E
def match_enum_attribute(f: Foo) -> None:
match f:
case Foo(E.A):
pass
case Foo(E.B):
pass
case _ as r:
# error: Argument 1 to "assert_never" has incompatible type "Foo"; expected "NoReturn" [arg-type]
assert_never(r)
Contributor guide
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 reproducing the two examples using assert_never(), match-case, Sequence patterns, and the wrapped Enum attribute shown in the issue. Trace mypy's exhaustiveness and narrowing behavior for these cases; done means supported non-trivial matches are recognized as exhaustive without the reported type errors, with coverage for the examples.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- devtools
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100