[Tutor] 'module' object has no attribute (setting a class attribute)

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2010 08:20:37 am Tim Johnson wrote:

> I have two questions regarding this:
> 1)Am I using the correct method to set a class attribute?

Yes. The way to set a class attribute is the same way that you set an 
attribute on *any* object:

some_object.attribute_name = something

In your case, some_object is the class object tmpl.tmpl

(Unlike some other languages, classes in Python are themselves objects.)


> 2)Is there a system configuration that would cause the
> AttributeError exception to print out the module name.
> (In this cause it was 'kbLib' not 'tmpl'.

No. The right way to fix this problem is to fix the error message, not 
to create a system configuration option. What would you call it?

give_useless_error_messages = OFF

*wink*

The error messages in Python are not part of the language, but 
implementation details. Unfortunately CPython (the version you are 
almost certainly using) does have a few lousy error messages. However, 
in this case it is fairly straightforward to guess what the problem 
was. The error message you got was:

'module' object has no attribute 'templatepath'

On the left hand side, you had the module object tmpl, but you weren't 
trying to set tmpl.templatepath (module object . attribute name), you 
were trying tmpl.tmpl.templatepath (module object . class object . 
attribute name). If the left hand side was the problem, you would 
probably have got this error instead:

'module' object has no attribute 'tmpl'

(There are other errors you could have got, but they're fairly obscure 
and/or unusual.)




-- 
Steven D'Aprano