Update docs for Literal types (#8152)

This pull request is a long-overdue update of the Literal type docs. It:

1. Removes the "this is alpha" warning we have at the top.

2. Mentions Literal enums are a thing (and works in a very brief example of one).

3. Adds a section about "intelligent indexing".

4. Adds a section with an example about the "tagged union" pattern
    (see #8151).

5. Cross-references the "tagged union" docs with the TypedDicts docs.

Author: Michael0x2a

docs/source/literal_types.rst

@@ -3,13 +3,6 @@
 Literal types
 =============
 
-.. note::
-
-   ``Literal`` is an officially supported feature, but is highly experimental
-   and should be considered to be in alpha stage. It is very likely that future
-   releases of mypy will modify the behavior of literal types, either by adding
-   new features or by tuning or removing problematic ones.
-
 Literal types let you indicate that an expression is equal to some specific
 primitive value. For example, if we annotate a variable with type ``Literal["foo"]``,
 mypy will understand that variable is not only of type ``str``, but is also
@@ -23,8 +16,7 @@ precise type signature for this function using ``Literal[...]`` and overloads:
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
-    from typing import overload, Union
-    from typing_extensions import Literal
+    from typing import overload, Union, Literal
 
     # The first two overloads use Literal[...] so we can
     # have precise return types:
@@ -53,18 +45,25 @@ precise type signature for this function using ``Literal[...]`` and overloads:
     variable = True
     reveal_type(fetch_data(variable))    # Revealed type is 'Union[bytes, str]'
 
+.. note::
+
+    The examples in this page import ``Literal`` as well as ``Final`` and
+    ``TypedDict`` from the ``typing`` module. These types were added to
+    ``typing`` in Python 3.8, but are also available for use in Python 2.7
+    and 3.4 - 3.7 via the ``typing_extensions`` package.
+
 Parameterizing Literals
 ***********************
 
-Literal types may contain one or more literal bools, ints, strs, and bytes.
-However, literal types **cannot** contain arbitrary expressions:
+Literal types may contain one or more literal bools, ints, strs, bytes, and
+enum values. However, literal types **cannot** contain arbitrary expressions:
 types like ``Literal[my_string.trim()]``, ``Literal[x > 3]``, or ``Literal[3j + 4]``
 are all illegal.
 
 Literals containing two or more values are equivalent to the union of those values.
-So, ``Literal[-3, b"foo", True]`` is equivalent to
-``Union[Literal[-3], Literal[b"foo"], Literal[True]]``. This makes writing
-more complex types involving literals a little more convenient.
+So, ``Literal[-3, b"foo", MyEnum.A]`` is equivalent to
+``Union[Literal[-3], Literal[b"foo"], Literal[MyEnum.A]]``. This makes writing more
+complex types involving literals a little more convenient.
 
 Literal types may also contain ``None``. Mypy will treat ``Literal[None]`` as being
 equivalent to just ``None``. This means that ``Literal[4, None]``,
@@ -88,9 +87,6 @@ Literals may not contain any other kind of type or expression. This means doing
 ``Literal[my_instance]``, ``Literal[Any]``, ``Literal[3.14]``, or
 ``Literal[{"foo": 2, "bar": 5}]`` are all illegal.
 
-Future versions of mypy may relax some of these restrictions. For example, we
-plan on adding support for using enum values inside ``Literal[...]`` in an upcoming release.
-
 Declaring literal variables
 ***************************
 
@@ -115,7 +111,7 @@ you can instead change the variable to be ``Final`` (see :ref:`final_attrs`):
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
-    from typing_extensions import Final, Literal
+    from typing import Final, Literal
 
     def expects_literal(x: Literal[19]) -> None: pass
 
@@ -134,7 +130,7 @@ For example, mypy will type check the above program almost as if it were written
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
-    from typing_extensions import Final, Literal
+    from typing import Final, Literal
 
     def expects_literal(x: Literal[19]) -> None: pass
 
@@ -151,7 +147,7 @@ For example, compare and contrast what happens when you try appending these type
 
 .. code-block:: python
 
-    from typing_extensions import Final, Literal
+    from typing import Final, Literal
 
     a: Final = 19
     b: Literal[19] = 19
@@ -168,6 +164,131 @@ For example, compare and contrast what happens when you try appending these type
     reveal_type(list_of_lits)  # Revealed type is 'List[Literal[19]]'
 
 
+Intelligent indexing
+********************
+
+We can use Literal types to more precisely index into structured heterogeneous
+types such as tuples, NamedTuples, and TypedDicts. This feature is known as
+*intelligent indexing*.
+
+For example, when we index into a tuple using some int, the inferred type is
+normally the union of the tuple item types. However, if we want just the type
+corresponding to some particular index, we can use Literal types like so:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from typing import TypedDict
+
+    tup = ("foo", 3.4)
+
+    # Indexing with an int literal gives us the exact type for that index
+    reveal_type(tup[0])  # Revealed type is 'str'
+
+    # But what if we want the index to be a variable? Normally mypy won't
+    # know exactly what the index is and so will return a less precise type:
+    int_index = 1
+    reveal_type(tup[int_index])  # Revealed type is 'Union[str, float]'
+
+    # But if we use either Literal types or a Final int, we can gain back
+    # the precision we originally had:
+    lit_index: Literal[1] = 1
+    fin_index: Final = 1
+    reveal_type(tup[lit_index])  # Revealed type is 'str'
+    reveal_type(tup[fin_index])  # Revealed type is 'str'
+
+    # We can do the same thing with with TypedDict and str keys:
+    class MyDict(TypedDict):
+        name: str
+        main_id: int
+        backup_id: int
+
+    d: MyDict = {"name": "Saanvi", "main_id": 111, "backup_id": 222}
+    name_key: Final = "name"
+    reveal_type(d[name_key])  # Revealed type is 'str'
+
+    # You can also index using unions of literals
+    id_key: Literal["main_id", "backup_id"]
+    reveal_type(d[id_key])    # Revealed type is 'int' 
+
+.. _tagged_unions:
+
+Tagged unions
+*************
+
+When you have a union of types, you can normally discriminate between each type
+in the union by using ``isinstance`` checks. For example, if you had a variable ``x`` of
+type ``Union[int, str]``, you could write some code that runs only if ``x`` is an int
+by doing ``if isinstance(x, int): ...``.
+
+However, it is not always possible or convenient to do this. For example, it is not
+possible to use ``isinstance`` to distinguish between two different TypedDicts since
+at runtime, your variable will simply be just a dict.
+
+Instead, what you can do is *label* or *tag* your TypedDicts with a distinct Literal
+type. Then, you can discriminate between each kind of TypedDict by checking the label:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from typing import Literal, TypedDict, Union
+
+    class NewJobEvent(TypedDict):
+        tag: Literal["new-job"]
+        job_name: str
+        config_file_path: str
+
+    class CancelJobEvent(TypedDict):
+        tag: Literal["cancel-job"]
+        job_id: int
+
+    Event = Union[NewJobEvent, CancelJobEvent]
+
+    def process_event(event: Event) -> None:
+        # Since we made sure both TypedDicts have a key named 'tag', it's
+        # safe to do 'event["tag"]'. This expression normally has the type
+        # Literal["new-job", "cancel-job"], but the check below will narrow
+        # the type to either Literal["new-job"] or Literal["cancel-job"].
+        #
+        # This in turns narrows the type of 'event' to either NewJobEvent 
+        # or CancelJobEvent.
+        if event["tag"] == "new-job":
+            print(event["job_name"])
+        else:
+            print(event["job_id"])
+
+While this feature is mostly useful when working with TypedDicts, you can also
+use the same technique wih regular objects, tuples, or namedtuples.
+
+Similarly, tags do not need to be specifically str Literals: they can be any type
+you can normally narrow within ``if`` statements and the like. For example, you
+could have your tags be int or Enum Literals or even regular classes you narrow
+using ``isinstance()``:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from typing import Generic, TypeVar, Union
+
+    T = TypeVar('T')
+
+    class Wrapper(Generic[T]):
+        def __init__(self, inner: T) -> None:
+            self.inner = inner
+
+    def process(w: Union[Wrapper[int], Wrapper[str]]) -> None:
+        # Doing `if isinstance(w, Wrapper[int])` does not work: isinstance requires
+        # that the second argument always be an *erased* type, with no generics.
+        # This is because generics are a typing-only concept and do not exist at
+        # runtime in a way `isinstance` can always check.
+        #
+        # However, we can side-step this by checking the type of `w.inner` to
+        # narrow `w` itself:
+        if isinstance(w.inner, int):
+            reveal_type(w)  # Revealed type is 'Wrapper[int]'
+        else:
+            reveal_type(w)  # Revealed type is 'Wrapper[str]'
+
+This feature is sometimes called "sum types" or "discriminated union types"
+in other programming languages.
+
 Limitations
 ***********
 

docs/source/more_types.rst

@@ -1119,3 +1119,16 @@ and non-required keys, such as ``Movie`` above, will only be compatible with
 another ``TypedDict`` if all required keys in the other ``TypedDict`` are required keys in the
 first ``TypedDict``, and all non-required keys of the other ``TypedDict`` are also non-required keys
 in the first ``TypedDict``.
+
+Unions of TypedDicts
+--------------------
+
+Since TypedDicts are really just regular dicts at runtime, it is not possible to
+use ``isinstance`` checks to distinguish between different variants of a Union of
+TypedDict in the same way you can with regular objects.
+
+Instead, you can use the :ref:`tagged union pattern <tagged_unions>`. The referenced
+section of the docs has a full description with an example, but in short, you will
+need to give each TypedDict the same key where each value has a unique
+unique :ref:`Literal type <literal_types>`. Then, check that key to distinguish
+between your TypedDicts.