[3.14] annotationlib - get_annotations with Format.FORWARDREF returns _Stringifier instances instead of ForwardRef for module.type annotations where the module is not loaded

[DavidCEllis]

Bug report

Bug description:

Tested on 3.14.0a1 - related to implementation of PEP 649 / PEP 749 - #119180

If a type uses dotted access but can't be evaluated, get_annotations returns _Stringifier objects instead of ForwardRef objects.

from annotationlib import get_annotations, Format

class Example:
    dotted: typing.Any
    undotted: Any

ann = get_annotations(Example, format=Format.FORWARDREF)

for name, value in ann.items():
    print(f"{name!r}: {value!r} | type: {type(value)!r}")

Output:

'dotted': typing.Any | type: <class 'annotationlib._Stringifier'>
'undotted': ForwardRef('Any') | type: <class 'annotationlib.ForwardRef'>

I'd expect to see ForwardRef('typing.Any') here so this was surprising. I also found another bug related to dotted access but not related to Stringifiers that I'll raise separately.

CPython versions tested on:

3.14

Operating systems tested on:

Linux

Linked PRs

• gh-125614: annotationlib: Fix bug where not all Stringifiers are converted #125635

[JelleZijlstra]

This is because we maintain a list of Stringifiers so we can turn them into ForwardRefs later, but we don't track new Stringifiers that are created from an attribute access on another one. The fix should be to also register those new ones on the _StringifierDict.