(🎁) Flag to make default return type None instead of Any

🚀 Feature

Most other languages(Kotlin, Rust, Swift etc) have a void(or equivalent) return type by default. Can an option be added to have an implicit None return type.

def foo():  # implicit None
  print("hi")

🆕 Update

Basedmypy 1.3 supports this functionality with the --default-return flag.

Already exists: ‘ --check-untyped-defs’.

@gvanrossum

@gvanrossum I don't think you understand my feature request, in Kotlin

fun foo() {
    return
}

is a valid function, that returns an implicit Unit(essentially Void) and is fully typed.

Swift and Rust(and others I assume) also have this feature and I think it's a good one.

The --check-untyped-defs flag isn't what I'm asking for.

Thanks for the quick response.

Go also supports this.

Currently returns Any

def foo():
  return

Whoops.

I think that this could be a useful feature, but perhaps only when --check-untyped-defs or --disallow-untyped-defs is enabled, as otherwise def foo(): would be ambiguous -- it's unclear if we should type check the body.

There is a problem when using --check-untyped-defs, as we should only give def foo(): an implicit None return type if there is no return statement with an explicit value in the body. This would be a bit dangerous however, as any return statement with a value would turn the return type into Any. So maybe this should only be allowed with --disallow-untyped-defs?

Unit tests, in particular, could benefit from this, since there tend to be a lot of functions like def test_foo(...) -> None.

Additionally, maybe an explicit None return type should be an error in this mode, as otherwise it could look confusing (or at least inconsistent). We could give this error a dedicated error code so that it would be possible to disable the message, however.

Maybe name the flag --default-none-return and if enabled then def foo(): would then be considered a typed def and should be checked regardless of whether --check-untyped-defs is selected.

I would think an explicit none return type in this mode should be a warning.

I think that this could be a useful feature, but perhaps only when --check-untyped-defs or --disallow-untyped-defs

Or it would rather be an alternative to these 2 options.

This would be a bit dangerous however, as any return statement with a value would turn the return type into Any.

This case should be considered an error.

I feel this feature request is misguided. It creates an incompatible variant language. Just write ‘-> None’ already!

Just write ‘-> None’ already!

I don't know. Maybe I'm just too spoiled by the fact that return None, return and implicit return do exactly the same thing, but it feels just wrong to add -> None to a function that doesn't actually have a return None statement. For me it feels natural that functions that don't have a return type annotation should be considered as retuning None, because that's what happens if a function doesn't have a return statement.

This feels like a special case of #4409.

I would not want it to be inferred. I would like this to give me an error:

but why?

but why?

There is a perfect explanation of that in the post you replied to.

I would not want it to be inferred. I would like this to give me an error:

but why?

Because it may not be obvious to a human reader what the expected return type is. It's one thing to have mypy infer the return type by looking at what's being returned, it's a completely different thing for a human to do the same. In the example of returning a single integer that's easy enough of course, but chained function calls or objects are less obvious.

By being explicit with what you want to return you are also reducing risk for bugs and it makes refactoring and team work much easier. And yes I do consider not writing a return type to be just as explicit as writing -> None. It makes sense that when you look at a function that doesn't have a return type it's because it doesn't return anything.

I am very much in favor of having a flag that enables this behavior as I find myself writing -> None a lot in unit tests etc. which will never return anything. It just feels redundant to have it there.

I'll bring a counterproposal from my (closed as duplicate) issue #14180, which I'll copy here for convenience.

I seem to understand that all arguments against the proposal have to do with it potentially being unexpected as a default behaviour (and it would definitely be something of a breaking change for anyone who already adopts mypy and doesn't enable disallow_untyped_defs). My proposal includes the behaviour only behind a flag, which would make the feature opt-in and thus not a problem for current adopters anymore. Please see the full proposal below:

Feature

Behind a config flag like untyped_return_type_is_none = true, Mypy assumes that a function with no return type, e.g.:

def my_func(i_am_annotated: str):  # Note: no "-> int" annotation
    return 5

Returns None, instead of accepting any return type at face value.

Additionally, while untyped_return_type_is_none is true, disallow_untyped_defs allows functions to have no return annotation if their return type is None.

Pitch

Adoption for the disallow_untyped_defs is difficult, because it requires None to be explicitly annotated. This makes code more wordy in many places where the annotation adds zero value (think of all test functions/methods for extremely popular frameworks like pytest or unittest). This is especially overwhelming for maintainers of large codebases with many tests and existing functions.

Having the flag would give users an option to leave -> None functions unannotated.

Current behaviour would be unchanged if the new flag were not activated, but activating the flag would force users to annotate those functions that do return a value, providing a large but progressive step towards disallow_untyped_defs, reducing the essentially meaningless menial work of adding -> None everywhere.

@AlexWaygood

@AlexWaygood This is not about inference.
The return type would not be inferred.
With this option turned on, the return type for any function without a return type annotation would be None.
Nothing is inferred.

def foo():
    return 3

With this option turned on, this would be considered an annotated function, and it would report an error because I'm not allowed to return 3 when the return type is None.

Strongly in favor of this! The major blocker for out team in adopting disallow_untyped_defs is requiring -> None in plenty of functions where it is obvious.

Note you could use a complementary tool like https://github.com/JelleZijlstra/autotyping to automatically add -> None (edit from later: or ruff check . --select ANN2 --fix)

@hauntsaninja

@hauntsaninja Yes, but -> None is a visual garbage that makes function definitions longer (they are already long because of the arguments annotations). And it doesn't add anything in terms of code readability.

As a workaround, ruff supports flake8-annotations which tests for this, and flake8-annotations has the requested setting!

[tool.ruff.flake8-annotations]
suppress-none-returning = true

Came here looking for this feature - to default the return type to None if one wasn't specified, and give me an error if the function is returning something.

As a workaround, ruff supports flake8-annotations which tests for this, and flake8-annotations has the requested setting!
[tool.ruff.flake8-annotations]
suppress-none-returning = true

This is fine and all for what it is, but it's not super useful, because mypy foo.py will complain, and the editor's LSP integration will still light up.

Navigation Menu

Repository navigation

(🎁) Flag to make default return type `None` instead of `Any` #9413

🚀 Feature

🆕 Update

5 remaining items

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

(🎁) Flag to make default return type None instead of Any #9413

Description

🚀 Feature

🆕 Update

Activity

gvanrossum commented on Sep 4, 2020

KotlinIsland commented on Sep 4, 2020

KotlinIsland commented on Sep 4, 2020

KotlinIsland commented on Sep 4, 2020

gvanrossum commented on Sep 4, 2020

JukkaL commented on Sep 4, 2020

KotlinIsland commented on Sep 4, 2020

eternal-sorrow commented on Jan 27, 2022

gvanrossum commented on Jan 27, 2022

eternal-sorrow commented on Jan 27, 2022

JelleZijlstra commented on Jan 27, 2022

5 remaining items

djmattyg007 commented on May 2, 2022

eternal-sorrow commented on May 2, 2022

diddi- commented on Oct 4, 2022

berzi commented on Nov 24, 2022

beauxq commented on Nov 24, 2022

MartinBernstorff commented on Mar 9, 2023

hauntsaninja commented on Mar 9, 2023

eternal-sorrow commented on Mar 9, 2023

MartinBernstorff commented on Mar 9, 2023

ronpsmith commented on Oct 19, 2023

mjtorn commented on Jul 24, 2025

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Relationships

Development

Issue actions

(🎁) Flag to make default return type `None` instead of `Any` #9413