typeguard 2.1.1

Run-time type checker for Python

This library provides run-time type checking for functions defined with argument type annotations.

The typing module introduced in Python 3.5 (and available on PyPI for older versions of Python 3) is supported. See below for details.

There are three principal ways to use type checking, each with its pros and cons:

1. calling check_argument_types() from within the function body:

   • debugger friendly

   • cannot check the type of the return value

   • does not work reliably with dynamically defined type hints (e.g. in nested functions)

2. decorating the function with @typechecked:

   • can check the type of the return value

   • adds an extra frame to the call stack for every call to a decorated function

3. using with TypeChecker('packagename')::

   • emits warnings instead of raising TypeError

   • eliminates boilerplate

   • multiple TypeCheckers can be stacked/nested

   • noninvasive (only records type violations; does not raise exceptions)

   • does not work reliably with dynamically defined type hints (e.g. in nested functions)

   • may cause problems with badly behaving debuggers or profilers

If a function is called with incompatible argument types or a @typechecked decorated function returns a value incompatible with the declared type, a descriptive TypeError exception is raised.

Type checks can be fairly expensive so it is recommended to run Python in “optimized” mode (python -O or setting the PYTHONOPTIMIZE environment variable) when running code containing type checks in production. The optimized mode will disable the type checks, by virtue of removing all assert statements and setting the __debug__ constant to False.

Using check_argument_types():

from typeguard import check_argument_types

def some_function(a: int, b: float, c: str, *args: str):
    assert check_argument_types()
    ...

Using @typechecked:

from typeguard import typechecked

@typechecked
def some_function(a: int, b: float, c: str, *args: str) -> bool:
    ...

To enable type checks even in optimized mode:

@typechecked(always=True)
def foo(a: str, b: int, c: Union[str, int]) -> bool:
    ...

Using TypeChecker:

from warnings import filterwarnings

from typeguard import TypeChecker, TypeWarning

# Display all TypeWarnings, not just the first one
filterwarnings('always', category=TypeWarning)

# Run your entire application inside this context block
with TypeChecker(['mypackage', 'otherpackage']):
    mypackage.run_app()

# Alternatively, manually start (and stop) the checker:
checker = TypeChecker('mypackage')
checker.start()
mypackage.start_app()

Hint

Some other things you can do with TypeChecker:

• display all warnings from the start with python -W always::typeguard.TypeWarning

• redirect them to logging using logging.captureWarnings()

• record warnings in your pytest test suite and fail test(s) if you get any (see the pytest documentation about that)

The following types from the typing package have specialized support:

Type	Notes
Callable	Argument count is checked but types are not (yet)
Dict	Keys and values are typechecked
List	Contents are typechecked
NamedTuple	Field values are typechecked
Set	Contents are typechecked
Tuple	Contents are typechecked
Type
TypeVar	Constraints, bound types and co/contravariance are supported but custom generic types are not (due to type erasure)
Union

Project links

• Change log

• Source repository

• Issue tracker