Change the typing spec around string references

[davidhalter]

I added this after the discussion here: https://discuss.python.org/t/annotation-string-references-in-class-scope-in-conformance-tests/105439

I'm not 100% sure about the wording, but I hope the direction is fine. I would like to gather some feedback before presenting this to the typing council.

Please also merge #2139 before this pull request. Otherwise it will be very hard to update Zuban's conformance test results in this pull request.

[davidhalter]

@JelleZijlstra Could you please pre-review this? What do you think about this spec change?

[davidhalter]

I think I have integrated all the changes. Is it time to open an issue on the Typing Council’s issue tracker asking for a decision?

[carljm]

One wording nit, one formatting nit, and one conformance suite nit :) But overall this looks great to me.

[rchen152]

Looks good to me - much more consistent and clearly specified than before

[carljm]

This looks good to me. Thanks @davidhalter for getting this clarified.

[davidhalter]

I have integrated all of Carl's suggestions. I will update the conformance tests as soon as the typing council approves this change. If I update it now we probably just run into merge conflicts, since especially pyrefly changes a lot.

@carljm Please let me know if you think something needs more work.

[zzzeek]

Hi, can someone explain the intent of this change to me?

Given, under python 3.14:

Python 3.14.0 (main, Oct 20 2025, 16:44:45) [GCC 14.3.1 20250808 (Red Hat 14.3.1-3)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class A: pass
... 
>>> class X:
...     def A(self) -> "A": pass
...     
>>> class Y:
...     def A(self) -> A: pass
...     
>>> typing.get_type_hints(X.A)
{'return': <class '__main__.A'>}
>>> typing.get_type_hints(Y.A)
{'return': <function Y.A at 0x7f2052bc3c10>}
>>> 

does this change propose that it would be impossible for get_type_hints(X.A) to return class A under any circumstances, even with the quotes?

[JelleZijlstra]

Yes

[zzzeek]

are you going to change the behavior of get_type_hints() ? is this a 3.15 change? is there a pep? it should be apparent that this is an enormous backwards-incompatible change I hope?

[zzzeek]

also is this change intended to take place regardless of whether a file is in pep-563 mode or pep-649 mode?

[zzzeek]

existing libraries which use this pattern will have to use:

>>> _a_cls = A
>>> class Z:
...     def A(self) -> _a_cls: pass
...     
>>> typing.get_type_hints(Z.A)
{'return': <class '__main__.A'>}

[CaselIT]

this would be on top of this breaking change in 3.13 -> 3.14

Python 3.13.9 | packaged by Anaconda, Inc. | (main, Oct 21 2025, 19:09:58) [MSC v.1929 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class A: pass
...
>>> class F:
...     def A(self)->A: pass
...
>>> import typing
>>> typing.get_type_hints(F.A)
{'return': <class '__main__.A'>}

Python 3.14.3 | packaged by Anaconda, Inc. | (main, Feb 24 2026, 22:45:56) [MSC v.1942 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> class A: pass
...
>>> class F:
...     def A(self) -> A: pass
...
>>> import typing
>>> typing.get_type_hints(F.A)
{'return': <function F.A at 0x0000025520D22610>}

[zzzeek]

I went to where I knew I'd find examples of this, in datetime.pyi, and indeed they are using an alias to work around the ambiguity: https://github.com/python/typeshed/blob/main/stdlib/datetime.pyi#L296