How best to dynamically define methods (and functions)?

[Erik Max Francis]

Kenneth McDonald wrote:

> I can see an obvious but hacky way to define a Python function at 
> runtime. I can't see any obvious way to add a method to a class at 
> runtime (though I'm sure one could do just about anything by digging 
> into the metaclass stuff, which I will do if needed). But pointers to 
> cleaner or easier existing ways to do this would be most appreciated.
> 
> In case it's of interest in the context of the question, I need to 
> define a largish set of functions (and similar methods) that define a 
> XML-type markup language. Most of these functions will just be of the form
> 
> def fun(...):
>    return Node('fun', ...)
> 
> so it'd definitely be nice to just create most of them automatically, 
> and only do the special cases by hand.

Something like::

	method = ['fun', ...]
	for method in methods:
	    setattr(MyClass, method, lambda *x: Node(method, *x))

The first argument here will be the implicit self, if you don't want 
that, strip off the first argument (or use lambda self, *x: ...).

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