false error "Name "..." is not defined" when a valid symbol is used in a type position

[KotlinIsland]

from typing import cast

class Test:
    a: int
    
t = Test()

cast(t.a, int)  # error: Name "t.a" is not defined

This leave me being like:

Till I realize that I got the args the wrong way around.

[sobolevn]

This looks ok to me: Name "t.a" is indeed not defined as a type name.

What would be a better error message? Please, share your ideas.

[KotlinIsland]

"t.a" is not valid as a type

The current message doesn't clearly indicate that you are using a value in a type position.

[DetachHead]

yeah this seems odd, if we create our own cast function we get the correct error:

from typing import Any, TypeVar, cast


class Test:
    a: int


t = Test()
_T = TypeVar("_T")


def cast2(typ: type[_T], val: Any) -> _T:
    ...


cast2(t.a, int)  # error: Argument 1 to "cast2" has incompatible type "int"; expected "Type[<nothing>]"  [arg-type]
cast(t.a, int)  # error: Name "t.a" is not defined