🔹 Optional

💡 Means a value can exist OR be None

Example:

from typing import Optional

def find_friend(name: str) -> Optional[str]:
    if name == "Abhi":
        return "Best Friend"
    return None

📦 Think of it like a box:

• 🎁 Sometimes it has a gift (a string).

• 🚫 Sometimes it’s empty (None).

👉 Optional[str] = "string OR nothing"

🔹 cast

💡 Means “I promise, this is of a certain type — trust me!”

Example:

from typing import cast

value = "123"

# Tell Python tools: “this is a string”
number_str = cast(str, value)

print(number_str.upper())  # ✅ Treated as string

🎭 At runtime: cast does nothing magical
🎨 For type checkers: It’s like putting a label on an item.

👉 cast(str, value) = “This is definitely a str.”

🎁 Quick Analogy

• 🟢 Optional → “This gift box might have 🎸 or might be empty 🚫.”

• 🔵 cast → “This gift box is definitely 🎸 guitar, even if the label is wrong.”

✨ Summary

• ✅ Optional = “maybe something, maybe nothing”

• ✅ cast = “trust me, it’s this type”