What is getattr() exactly and how do I use it?

by

getattr(object, 'x') is completely equivalent to object.x.

There are only two cases where getattr can be useful.

  • you can’t write object.x, because you don’t know in advance which attribute you want (it comes from a string). Very useful for meta-programming.
  • you want to provide a default value. object.y will raise an AttributeError if there’s no y. But getattr(object, 'y', 5) will return 5.

Leave a Comment