VS Code PyLint Error E0602 (undefined variable) with ProtoBuf compiled Python Structure

Question

I was using Visual Studio for a long time, but it was becoming too complicated to maintain. Now I tried to move to VS Code, but it throws a number of PyLint error messages that don't make sense to me (and the program still works as expected). These errors happen primarily with Python code generated from a GoogleProtoBuf structure.

For example:

from lbsnstructure.lbsnstructure_pb2 import lbsnPost

def geoaccuracy_within_threshold(post_geoaccuracy, min_geoaccuracy):
    """Checks if geoaccuracy is within or below threshhold defined"""

    if min_geoaccuracy == lbsnPost.LATLNG:
        allowed_geoaccuracies = [lbsnPost.LATLNG]
    elif min_geoaccuracy == lbsnPost.PLACE:
        allowed_geoaccuracies = [lbsnPost.LATLNG, lbsnPost.PLACE]
    elif min_geoaccuracy == lbsnPost.CITY:
        allowed_geoaccuracies = [lbsnPost.LATLNG, lbsnPost.PLACE, lbsnPost.CITY]
    else:
        return True
    # check post geoaccuracy
    if post_geoaccuracy in allowed_geoaccuracies:
        return True
    else:
        return False

Throws error message E0602 from pyLint:

Undefined variable 'lbsnPost' pylint (E0602)
lbsnPost: GeneratedProtocolMessageType

However, Google explicitly states that this form of type-referencing is correct:

Enums are expanded by the metaclass into a set of symbolic constants with integer values. So, for example, the constant addressbook_pb2.Person.WORK has the value 2.

I get similar errors all over my code (that works fine). I suspect that this is something that I have written in the wrong convention, but somehow still works. But what is the right convention?

This page seems to discuss the same issue, but none of the solutions work:
Undefined variable from import when using protocol buffers in PyDev
that is, even when doing lbsnpost().LATLNG (instantiating the protobuf message), I get the same undefined variable error.

Answer 1

I solved my problem. Apparently, pylint has (had?) problems with protobuf compiled python classes. There's a package available that solves this issue.

• installed pylint-protobuf package (pip install pylint-protobuf)
• added "python.linting.pylintArgs": ["--load-plugins", "pylint_protobuf"] to User Settings in VS Code

No errors!

For more information, see the VS Code linting Docs