🔒 Circular Imports for Type Hinting

[vernal steppe]

Hi, how would I fix this circular import problem? I could remove the type hints, but I'd rather not.

from agentshell.prompts import TextPrompt

class Shell:
    ...
    def prompt(self, text: str) -> TextPrompt:
        return TextPrompt(self, text)

from agentshell import Shell

class Prompt:
    shell: Shell

    def __init__(self, shell: Shell):
        self.shell = shell

[gentle galleon]

@vernal steppe

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[proper trail]

conditional import, if typing.TYPE_CHECKING: ...

[vernal steppe]

Is that the only way?

[proper trail]

it's the standard way

[vernal steppe]

I know deferred and all that is an option, but I'm wondering if there's a way to cleanly restructure my code

Alright

Will do that then, ty

[distant torrent]

shell: "Shell"

[proper trail]

that won't fix the imports

[random cove]

you can prevent imports that happen solely for typing hinting by using typing.TYPE_CHECKING

from __future__ import annotations
from typing import TYPE_CHECKING

if TYPE_CHECKING:
  from agentshell.prompts import TextPrompt

class Shell:
    ...
    def prompt(self, text: str) -> TextPrompt:
        return TextPrompt(self, text)

from __future__ import annotations
from typing import TYPE_CHECKING

if TYPE_CHECKING:
  from agentshell import Shell

class Prompt:
    shell: Shell

    def __init__(self, shell: Shell):
        self.shell = shell

and youll need the from __future__ import annotations to convert all type hints to string at runtime

[distant torrent]

You can't use string literals instead of the import?

[proper trail]

how would they be resolved then?

[distant torrent]

Remove the "import Shell" line entirely and just use "Shell"?

[proper trail]

how would the static type checker resolve the Shell name to an actual type then?

[distant torrent]

Ah, maybe that wouldn't work.

[random cove]

if you really dont wanna use TYPE_CHECKING, then you will have to import the module and access the type from that like so

import agentshell

class Shell:
    ...
    def prompt(self, text: str) -> agentshell.prompts.TextPrompt:
        return TextPrompt(self, text)

[proper trail]

that still requires the future import

[random cove]

no?

[proper trail]

yes

because otherwise it will try to resolve the annotation to a name that hasn't been defined yet due to the circular imports

[random cove]

damn

[vernal steppe]

Another question since this is a small one, pyright: ignore[reportUnusedVariable] doesn't seem to work for

    def run(self, prompt: T) -> Any:
        _ = prompt # ignore reportUnusedVariable
        raise NotImplementedError

Any tips?

On the function sign

signature

So if I write def run(...) -> Any: # pyright: ignore[reportUnusedVariable]

[proper trail]

what is the point of that line in the first place?

[vernal steppe]

The function?

[proper trail]

the _ = prompt

[vernal steppe]

As a stop-gap measure that does the same thing

[proper trail]

as what?

[vernal steppe]

To ignore the unused variable

[proper trail]

oh, ignores an unused parameter

I didn't know pyright would complain about that

seems unwarranted

but this has nothing to do with annotations anymore; maybe open a new question about the pyright warning?

[modern turret]

Another way is to do a module import. ```py
from future import annotations

import module

def foo() -> module.MyType:...

[gentle galleon]

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