[Numpy-discussion] Type annotations for NumPy

[Charles R Harris]

On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 1:14 AM, Stephan Hoyer <shoyer at gmail.com> wrote:

> There's been growing interest in supporting PEP-484 style type annotations
> in NumPy: https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/7370
>
> This would allow NumPy users to add type-annotations to their code that
> uses NumPy, which they could check with mypy, pycharm or pytype. For
> example:
>
> def f(x: np.ndarray) -> np.ndarray:
>     """Identity function on a NumPy array."""
>     return x
>
> Eventually, we could include data types and potentially array shapes as
> part of the type. This gets quite a bit more complicated, and to do in a
> really satisfying way would require new features in Python's typing system.
> To help guide discussion, I wrote a doc describing use-cases and needs for
> typing array shapes in more detail: https://docs.google.com/document/d/
> 1vpMse4c6DrWH5rq2tQSx3qwP_m_0lyn-Ij4WHqQqRHY
>
> Nathaniel Smith and I recently met with group in San Francisco interested
> in this topic, including several mypy/typeshed developers (Jelle Zijlstra
> and Ethan Smith). We discussed and came up with a plan for moving forward:
> 1. Release basic type stubs for numpy.ndarray without dtypes or shapes, as
> separate "numpy_stubs" package on PyPI per PEP 561. This will let us
> iterate rapidly on (experimental) type annotations without coupling to
> NumPy's release cycle.
> 2. Add support for dtypes in ndarray type-annotations. This might be as
> simple as writing np.ndarray[np.float64], but will need a decision about
> appropriate syntax for shape typing to ensure that this is forwards
> compatible with typing shapes. Note: this will likely require minor changes
> to NumPy itself, e.g., to add __class_getitem__ per PEP 560.
> 3. Add support for shapes in ndarray type-annotations, and define a
> broader standard for typing array shapes. This will require collaboration
> with type-checker developers on the required typing features (for details,
> see my doc above). Eventually, this may entail writing a PEP.
>
>
Can you make a case for the usefulness numpy annotations? What benefits to
you want to achieve and how will annotation aid in getting there.

Chuck
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