python: how to refer to the class from within it ( like the recursive function)

Question

For a recursive function we can do:

def f(i):
  if i<0: return
  print i
  f(i-1)

f(10)

However is there a way to do the following thin

Answer 1

Do remember that in Python, type hinting is just for auto-code completion therefore it helps IDE to infer types and warn user before runtime. In runtime, type hints almost never used(except in some cases) so you can do something like this:

from typing import Any, Optional, NewType

LinkListType = NewType("LinkList", object)


class LinkList:
    value: Any
    _next: LinkListType

    def set_next(self, ll: LinkListType):
        self._next = ll


if __name__ == '__main__':
    r = LinkList()
    r.value = 1
    r.set_next(ll=LinkList())
    print(r.value)

And as you can see IDE successfully infers it's type as LinkList:

Note: Since the next can be None, hinting this in the type would be better, I just didn't want to confuse OP.

class LinkList:
    value: Any
    next: Optional[LinkListType]