Hands-On Software Engineering with Python

Function and method annotation (hinting)

If you've worked with Python functions and methods before, you may have noticed and wondered about some unexpected syntax in some of the methods in the template files earlier, specifically the items in bold here:

def _get_property_name(self) -> str:

def _set_property_name(self, value:str) -> None:

def _del_property_name(self) -> None:

def instance_method(self, arg:str, *args, **kwargs):

These are examples of type hints that are supported in Python 3. One of the standards that hms_sys code will also adhere to is that all methods and functions should be type hinted. The resulting annotations may eventually be used to enforce type checking of arguments using a decorator, and even later on may be useful ...