Calling a function or method by name

[Jonathan Gardner]

I don't even know where to look for the answer to this one. If I have a 
function name, stored in a string, how do I call that function? I have a 
feeling it has something to do with apply() and __dict__, but I don't know 
how to start looking.

In particular, if I have a class with several subclasses, and I want to call 
a method, how is that done?

What is this for? Well, I want my class to respond to keys being pressed. 
Each key will trigger a call to a class method with no arguments (except 
self). I don't want to have a huge if/elif structure because that is slow. I 
want to use a dict. The keys will be the value of the key being pressed. The 
values will be the name of the function to call.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Jonathan