Automatic init with dataclasses

[binyamin555]

Introduction

The following syntax is really neat and useful.

from dataclasses import dataclass

from pydom import Component


@dataclass
class Profile(Component):
  name: str
  age: int

This syntax eliminates the need for writing the __init__ function and also allows for the other features found in Python dataclasses.

The Problem

Now, I have my application built with FastAPI and I added a custom encoder as described here.

When trying to return this component directly from a FastAPI route, it is automatically returned as JSON.

This is because FastAPI first checks if the result is a dataclass, and then directly returns it as a JSON, skipping the rest of the encoders. This, of course, makes sense, because dataclasses are basically data records.

Possible Solution

It'd be nice if you could add your own dataclass decorator for components.
Of course, it should be named something else, since it's job is mainly to generate the __init__ function (although, adding support for frozen and slots could also be useful).

In terms of typing, using this decorator from the typing library will help with proper type hints.

[neriyaco]

Unfortunately, this change requires a change in Python's type checkers and probably will require a PEP, as we want to support *children in the __init__ function as well

[binyamin555]

Python typing really sucks. Even CSS is better at typing than Python.