Inconsistent return statements

Highlights inconsistent return statements in functions. According to PEP8, either all return statements in a function should return an expression, or none of them should.

PEP8's recommendation: Either all return statements in a function should return an expression, or none of them should. If any return statement returns an expression, any return statements where no value is returned should explicitly state this as return None, and an explicit return statement should be present at the end of the function (if reachable):

# Correct:

def foo(x):
    if x >= 0:
        return math.sqrt(x)
    else:
        return None

def bar(x):
    if x < 0:
        return None
    return math.sqrt(x)

# Wrong:

def foo(x):
    if x >= 0:
        return math.sqrt(x)

def bar(x):
    if x < 0:
        return
    return math.sqrt(x)

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

PyInconsistentReturns

Via Settings dialog

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Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Python

Inspection ID: PyInconsistentReturnsInspection

Suppressing Inspection

You can suppress this inspection by placing the following comment marker before the code fragment where you no longer want messages from this inspection to appear:

//noinspection PyInconsistentReturns

More detailed instructions as well as other ways and options that you have can be found in the product documentation:

Inspection Details
By default bundled with:	CLion 2025.2, DataSpell 2025.2, PyCharm 2025.2,
Can be installed with plugin:	Python Community Edition, 252.26661.0

Last modified: 18 September 2025