Narrow completion suggestions to __all__ value

[m-novikov]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Some modules import a lot of symbols into their namespace. Auto-completion on such modules lists own symbols as well as all imported ones, which can be inconvenient.

Let's say I have a module a.py containing following

from typing import List

__all__ = ["foo"]

def foo() -> List[str]:
    return ["a"]

Currently autocomplete on a. gives me a.List and a.foo as possible options.

Describe the solution you'd like

When triggering auto complete on such module I would like to see only names listed in __all__ in suggestions + common module attributes such as __file__, __doc__

Additional context For modules that don't specify __all__ all names should be listed as before.

[erictraut]

I don't think this matches the expectations of most users. The __all__ symbol is not meant to be a comprehensive list of exported symbols. Rather, it's a list of symbols that are included in a wildcard import.

Since this isn't a core type checking issue, I'm going to transfer it to the pylance-release project and let the pylance team decide how to proceed.

[erictraut]

@m-novikov, is the module part of a "py.typed" library? If so, then we could limit suggestions only to those symbols that are considered part of the public interface for the library. For modules that are not part of a "py.typed" library (or type stubs), we don't have a good way of knowing which symbols are meant to be public and which are not. Python doesn't have any keywords like public and private, so we generally need to assume that the module author meant for all symbols to be public. See this documentation for more details.

[m-novikov]

It's not a part of py.typed. Maybe it makes sense to rank "private" symbols lower in suggestions?

[pukhov]

Are there any updates on this?

+1 for first showing all attributes defined in __all__, if present, and then show all other "more private like" functions/attributes. I understand it is not what __all__ means, but it kind of does mean this.

[judej]

Moving this issue to discussion as an enhancement request for comments and upvotes.