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topic: typing specFor improving the typing specFor improving the typing spec
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The typing spec currently says this:
Python’s numeric types complex, float and int are not subtypes of each other, but to support common use cases, the type system contains a straightforward shortcut: when an argument is annotated as having type float, an argument of type int is acceptable; similar, for an argument annotated as having type complex, arguments of type float or int are acceptable.
This is helpful in that it clarifies that there is not a subtype relationship here. It remains unclear (to me, at least) in the following ways:
- It implies that this special case applies only to function argument annotations, and not to any other annotation (e.g. an annotation of the type of an attribute of a class). I find this surprising, but perhaps it is intended? I think it is surprising enough that if it's intended, the wording should be even clearer, and explicitly show examples where the special case does not apply outside an argument annotation.
- The wording "is acceptable" in the absence of a subtype relationship does not clarify how this special case actually fits into the type system; we can accept an
intto afloattyped argument, but then how do we type that name within the function body? If what we actually mean here is thatfloatshould be interpreted asfloat | int, then we should say that clearly.
There was some discussion of this on #1663, which is about the different but related question of whether to mention the numeric tower and PEP 3141.
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topic: typing specFor improving the typing specFor improving the typing spec