After learning about TYPE_CHECKING i made it a habit to put all imports that were only needed for type checking into an if TYPE_CHECKING: guard. But now I am wondering if that is actually intended to be used like that. Checking whether an import is only needed at type checking time can get quite tedious and sometimes you run into situations were you introduced some code that made the import a requirement at runtime.
How do you use TYPE_CHECKING? Whenever it is possible or only when using it actually solves a circular import?
I don’t like having to quote the types, so I use it exclusively for avoiding circular imports.
Thanks for the tip
Why not use
from __future__ import annotations?Never heard of it. Thanks for the tip.
You still need to import the type before using it in a stringified type annotation for it to be valid though, so you’d need the import in an
if TYPE_CHECKING:block either way, no?Yes, but if it’s in a TYPE_CHECKING block I can ONLY use the annotation with quotes*, which is why I only use that method if I must.
from __future__ import annotationsas I’ve just learned.Ah yeah, I see what you meant.