python / python/mypy

Implicit TypeVar expansion of a Generic via another generic method

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bug priority-1-normal topic-type-variables
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Description

I really struggled to come up with a title for this, so I apologize for the ambiguity. I also considered "Spooky TypeVar action at a distance".

I'm investigating strategies for static type checking of apache beam, which is a streaming pipeline API.

Basically, I have a generic Transform with an In and Out type, and another generic Collection that wants to apply its type to the input type of Transform in order to produce a new Collection with the Transform's output type. These operations are repeated in a chain to form a pipeline:

Collection[None] -> Transform[None, A] -> Collection[A] -> Transform[A, B] -> Collection[B]

The catch is that a Transform's output type can be related to its input type via a TypeVar, and a Collection contains the concrete type of that input TypeVar. So when we call Collection.apply(transform) we want to resolve that chain of TypeVar dependencies to produce an expanded/concrete output type:

from typing import *

T = TypeVar('T')
InT = TypeVar('InT')
OutT = TypeVar('OutT')


class Transform(Generic[InT, OutT]):
    "Takes an input Collection and produces an output Collection"

    def __init__(self, fn: Callable[[InT], OutT]):
        self.fn = fn

    def call(self, arg: InT) -> OutT:
        return self.fn(arg)


def get_op(f: Callable[[InT], OutT]) -> Transform[InT, OutT]:
    "Get a Transform from a callable"
    return Transform(f)


class Collection(Generic[T]):
    "Collection of elements"

    def apply(self, op: Transform[T, OutT]) -> 'Collection[OutT]':
        """
        Apply the this Collection to a Transform and produce a new 
        output Collection
        """


# -- test:

def make_string(x: None) -> str:
    return 'foo'


def make_ones(x: T) -> Tuple[T, int]:
    return (x, 1)


c1: Collection = Collection()

str_op = get_op(make_string)
reveal_type(str_op)  # revealed: Transform[None, builtins.str*]

c2 = p1.apply(str_op)
reveal_type(c2)  # revealed: Collection[builtins.str*]

tuple_op = get_op(make_ones)
reveal_type(tuple_op)  # revealed: Transform[T`-1, Tuple[T`-1, builtins.int]]

c3 = c2.apply(tuple_op)
# Desired type is Collection[Tuple[builtins.str, builtins.int]]
reveal_type(c3)  # revealed: Collection[Tuple[T`-1, builtins.int]]

The crux of the issue is here:

class Collection(Generic[T]):
    "Collection of elements"

    def apply(self, op: Transform[T, OutT]) -> 'Collection[OutT]':
        """
        Apply the this Collection to a Transform and produce a new 
        output Collection
        """

My naive desire was that my Collection[builtins.str*] would apply its str type to T-1 of Transform[T-1, Tuple[T-1, builtins.int]] to produce Collection[Tuple[builtins.str, builtins.int]].

Instead I get:

error: Argument 1 to "apply" of "Collection" has incompatible type "Transform[T, Tuple[T, int]]"; expected "Transform[str, Tuple[T, int]]"

Is there any future universe where this is possible in mypy, or is it just too ambiguous?

Is it possible to write a mypy plugin to produce the desired result for Collection.apply?

  • edit: clarified relationship between Transform and Collection TypeVars

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Open the contributing guide

First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the provided generic Transform/Collection example in mypy, focusing on Collection.apply and its reveal_type results. Trace how the checker handles the TypeVar relationship and assess whether a plugin entry point can support it; done means establishing a clearly scoped implementation path or documenting why the requested inference is not supported.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
devtools
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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