[Python-ideas] Possible enhancement to typing

[Guido van Rossum]

On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 2:34 AM, Stéfane Fermigier <sf at fermigier.com> wrote:

> 4) 10 years ago, when I was working on the EDOS project (
> http://cordis.europa.eu/pub/ist/docs/directorate_d/st-ds/
> edos-project-story_en.pdf ), I ran a small experiment where I used, IIRC,
> the profile hook to intercept all function / method calls, and log
> information about arguments and return value types to a gigantic log file.
> Then the log file could be parsed and these information used to suggest
> type annotations. Except there were no type annotations at the time in
> Python.
>
> I know PyCharm can do a similar thing now: you run your program or your
> tests under the debugger, it logs runtime type information somewhere, and
> then can use it to suggest autocompletion or maybe type annotations.
>

I didn't know this. Do you know where there are docs for this feature?


> Now I believe something could be done along the lines:
>
> a) record runtime type information from test or regular runs
> b) massage these information and use them to annotate Python code with
> additional type information (up to the developer to then accept or not the
> proposed changes)
>

We have an early version of a tool that does this at Dropbox; I am planning
to open-source it by the end of this year. So far the experience is that
the annotations require a fair amount of manual cleanup though.

[snip]

> Similar to "Measuring Polymorphism in Python Programs", by Beatrice
Akerblom and Tobias Wrigstad:
> https://people.dsv.su.se/~beatrice/python/dls15_large_images.pdf
<https://people.dsv.su.se/~beatrice/python/dls15_large_images.pdf>

<https://people.dsv.su.se/~beatrice/python/dls15_large_images.pdf>
Thanks for the link!

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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