Interesting problem - can it be done

Erik Max Francis max at alcyone.com
Thu Aug 9 02:14:36 EDT 2001


Mark Sass wrote:

>     I have a list of strings and the strings are functions that I want
> to
> call on an object.

So you mean methods.

> How do I call the functions without hardcoding the
> function call?  Here is an example
> 
> funclist = ['func1()', 'func2()', 'func3()']
> x = len(funclist)
> y = 0
> while y < x:
>     value = testobj.funclist[y]
>     y = y +1

What you want is the getattr function, which takes an object and a
string representing an attribute name (but with no parentheses).  You
can then call that.

Another obvious thing missing is the for idiom, which iterates over
list.  This means you can avoid the while loops and the iteration
variable:

	methods = ['method1', 'method2', 'method3']
	for method in methods:
	    value = apply(getattr(testobj, method), ())

getattr turns the instance and the string attribute name into a bound
object, then apply calls it.  The () is the tuple of arguments, which in
this case is empty.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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 A mathematics reference.



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