In search of python idiom for accessing arbitrary fields at run time

[mshiltonj]

I'm trying to find the preferred python idiom for access arbitrary
fields of objects at run time.


For example, say I have an object the business code will do
*something* with three arbitrary fields at a given time, but I don't
know what the three fields are at run time. In perl, I'd do something
like this:

 sub three_fields{
      my $self = shift;
      my @fields = @_;

      foreach my $field (@fields)
      {
            my $value = $self->$field; # this is the one I'm
interested in
            [...]
      }
 }

In python, I'm doing something like this:

 def three_fields(self, field1, field2, field3):
      for field in (field1, field2, field3):
            value = eval('self.' + field) # this is the one I'm
interested in
            [...]

This seems to do what I expect it to do. I'm wondering if that's the
preferred or standard way to do this in python. I wasn't sure how to
tease the answer to this question out of Google.

Thanks.