reveal_type

The reveal_type function doesn't exist. However, if you call it and then run a type-checker (like mypy or pyright) on the file, it will show the type of the passed object:

a = 1
reveal_type(a)
reveal_type(len)

Now, let's run mypy:

$ mypy tmp.py
tmp.py:2: note: Revealed type is "builtins.int"
tmp.py:3: note: Revealed type is "def (typing.Sized) -> builtins.int"

It's quite helpful to see what type mypy inferred for the variable in some tricky cases.

For convenience, the reveal_type function was also added in typing module in Python 3.11:

from typing import reveal_type
a = 1
reveal_type(a)
# prints: Runtime type is 'int'
reveal_type(len)
# prints: Runtime type is 'builtin_function_or_method'

And for curious, here is the definition:

def reveal_type(__obj: T) -> T:
    print(
        f"Runtime type is {type(__obj).__name__!r}",
        file=sys.stderr,
    )
    return __obj