Exec inside a class method to call other class methods?

[bearophileHUGS at lycos.com]

Matthew Dubins:
> def parse(self, data, data_type)
>     exec "self.__parse_%s(data)" % data_type
> For some reason, *it didn't work*.

You can try defining this class attribute:
data_types = set("nocall DOB gender Prematurity email languages phone
cname pname address duedate".split())

And then a possible method can be:

def parse(self, data, data_type):
    if data_type in Classname.data_types:
        getattr(self, "__parse_" + data_type)(data)

If performance isn't a problem you can move data_types inside the
parse method.
If performance is a problem, data_types may become a dict, whose
values are references to the methods. That you can use as:

def parse(self, data, data_type):
    if data_type in data_types:
        data_types[data_type](data)

Or even as (but may be a little slower):

def parse(self, data, data_type):
    data_types.get(data_type, lambda x: None)(data)

Bye,
bearophile