Description

In redis-py, the spop method is available on both sync and asyncio clients.
However, the type hints for the asyncio client incorrectly declare a synchronous return type, which causes static type checkers (e.g. mypy) to report errors when using await.

Current implementation

In redis/commands/core.py, spop is defined as:

Problem

• redis.asyncio.Redis.execute_command() returns an awaitable
• Therefore, spop() on an asyncio client must be awaited at runtime
• But the declared return type is:

Union[str, List, None]

This causes type checkers to raise errors such as:

Incompatible types in "await" (actual type "str | list[Any] | None", expected type "Awaitable[Any]") 

even though the code is correct and required at runtime:

result = await redis_instance.spop(key, count)

Expected behavior

For the asyncio client, the return type should be wrapped in Awaitable, for example:

from typing import Awaitable, Optional, Union, List def spop( self, name: KeyT, count: Optional[int] = None ) -> Awaitable[Optional[Union[str, List]]]: ...

or, if overloads are preferred:

@overload def spop(self, name: KeyT, count: None = None) -> Awaitable[Optional[str]]: ... @overload def spop(self, name: KeyT, count: int) -> Awaitable[Optional[List[str]]]: ...

Impact

• Breaks mypy and other static type checkers when using redis.asyncio
• Forces users to use # type: ignore or unsafe cast()
• The issue affects spop and potentially other set-related commands with similar signatures

Environment

• redis version: ^6.4.0 (asyncio client)
• Python: 3.12+
• Type checker: mypy