[SOLVED] Python 3.5 typed NamedTuple syntax produces SyntaxError

Python 3.5 typed NamedTuple syntax produces SyntaxError

I get a SyntaxError: invalid syntax error when I try the new typed namedtuple syntax:

class Employee(NamedTuple):
    name: str
    id: int

in Python 3.5.2 even though according to the documentation it should be valid from 3.5+ onwards. Am I missing something? I've imported NamedTuple from typing in the code.

Solution

The syntax to declare the types for the name and id fields you are using requires Python 3.6 or up. Python 3.5 does not support the variable-level type hints required.

From the typing.NamedTuple documentation:

Changed in version 3.6: Added support for PEP 526 variable annotation syntax.

Use the backwards compatible syntax also included in the documentation:

Employee = NamedTuple('Employee', [('name', str), ('id', int)])

so listing the field names as (name, type) tuples.

If you are using Python 3.5, you may want to switch to the Python 3.5 version of the documentation instead (there is a selector in the top-left corner, or you can just replace the 3 in the URL with 3.5).