pylint doesn't complain about undefined name in string type annotation

[lggruspe]

Bug description

example.py:

# pylint: disable=missing-docstring

example1: undefined
# 😄 pylint complains

example2: "undefined"
# 😢 pylint doesn't

Configuration

No response

Command used

pylint example.py

Pylint output

************* Module example
example.py:3:10: E0602: Undefined variable 'undefined' (undefined-variable)

-----------------------------------
Your code has been rated at 0.00/10

Expected behavior

I think pylint should complain in both cases.

Pylint version

pylint 2.15.0
astroid 2.12.5
Python 3.10.6 (main, Aug  2 2022, 00:00:00) [GCC 12.1.1 20220507 (Red Hat 12.1.1-1)]

OS / Environment

No response

Additional dependencies

No response

[Pierre-Sassoulas]

The typical use case for this is "undefined" being defined in a if TYPE_CHECKING: guard ie.:

from typing import TYPE_CHECKING

if TYPE_CHECKING:
    import defined_conditionally

example1: defined_conditionally
# 😄 pylint complains

example2: "defined_conditionally"
# 😢 pylint doesn't

But pylint does not understand control flow well right now so we avoided a false positive at the cost of a false negative here. If we handle control flow better in astroid in the future then we could do this without the false positive. (I would advice checking string type annotation with mypy or pyright that are type checker).

[cdce8p]

Quoted annotations are just strings at runtime and won't break anything. This will run just fine.

example2: "undefined"

In contrast here undefined is an unresolved reference and Python would raise a NameError.

example1: undefined

As @Pierre-Sassoulas already suggested, to validate annotations, type checkers (like mypy or pyright) are much better and both will issue warnings for it.

I suggest we close this issue.

[Pierre-Sassoulas]

This this could be fixed if #4795. Closing for the reason Marc listed.