Inspect Python Classes for instance data information

[Tim Henderson]

Hello

I want to creat a program that can inspect a set of classes that i have
made and spit out a savable version of these classes. To do this I need
to be able to inspect each class and get all of its instance data as
well as information about a particular meathod. This is what i want it
to do:


class song:
    def __init__(self, name, artist, album, published):
        self.name = name
        self.artist = artist
        self.album = album
        self.published = published
    def build(self, name, artist, album, published):
        self.name = name
        self.artist = artist
        self.album = album
        self.published = published

#now what i want to do with this dummy class
s = song("12:51", "The Strokes", "Room on Fire", 2005)
print getTextVersion(s)

<class>
    <name>song</name>
    <data>
        <attribute>
            <date_type>string</data_type>
            <value>12:51</value>
            <attribute_name>name</attribute_name>
        </attribute>
        <attribute>
            <date_type>string</data_type>
            <value>The Strokes</value>
            <attribute_name>artist</attribute_name>
        </attribute>
        <attribute>
            <date_type>string</data_type>
            <value>Room on Fire</value>
            <attribute_name>album</attribute_name>
        </attribute>
        <attribute>
            <date_type>int</data_type>
            <value>2005</value>
            <attribute_name>published</attribute_name>
        </attribute>
    </data>
    <build_parameter_order>name artist album
published</build_parameter_order>
</class>


I have no idea how to do the inspection part of this little problem. I
could just have each class define its own meathod to convert to this
format, but that would be a lot of work when i could just make one
class that solves the problem for all classes. Is there a way to do
this?

cheers
---
Tim Henderson
mail me: tim.tadh at gmail.com