Generics/templates in python?

Question

How does python handle generic/template type scenarios? Say I want to create an external file \"BinaryTree.py\" and have it handle binary trees, but for any data type.

Answer 1

The other answers are totally fine:

• One does not need a special syntax to support generics in Python
• Python uses duck typing as pointed out by André.

However, if you still want a typed variant, there is a built-in solution since Python 3.5.

Generic classes:

from typing import TypeVar, Generic

T = TypeVar('T')

class Stack(Generic[T]):
    def __init__(self) -> None:
        # Create an empty list with items of type T
        self.items: List[T] = []

    def push(self, item: T) -> None:
        self.items.append(item)

    def pop(self) -> T:
        return self.items.pop()

    def empty(self) -> bool:
        return not self.items

# Construct an empty Stack[int] instance
stack = Stack[int]()
stack.push(2)
stack.pop()
stack.push('x')        # Type error

Generic functions:

from typing import TypeVar, Sequence

T = TypeVar('T')      # Declare type variable

def first(seq: Sequence[T]) -> T:
    return seq[0]

def last(seq: Sequence[T]) -> T:
    return seq[-1]


n = first([1, 2, 3])  # n has type int.

Reference: mypy documentation about generics.