Given a string - execute a function by the same name

[John Schroeder]

You can do it with a class using the __getattr__ function.  There might be a
way to do it without a class but I don't how to do it that way.

class AllMyFunctions(object):
    def a(self):
        print "Hello.  I am a."

    def b(self):
        print "Hey.  I'm b."

x = raw_input("Enter a function to call: ")
if x not in AllMyFunctions().__dict__:
    print "That's not a function that I have."
else:
    getattr(AllMyFunctions(), x)()

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 9:33 AM, Andrew Koenig <ark at acm.org> wrote:

> <python at bdurham.com> wrote in message
> news:mailman.291.1209400412.12834.python-list at python.org...
>
> > I'm parsing a simple file and given a line's keyword, would like to call
> > the equivalently named function.
>
> No, actually, you woudn't :-)  Doing so means that if your programs input
> specification ever changes, you have to rename all of the relevant
> functions.  Moreover, it leaves open the possibility that you might wind up
> calling a function you didn't intend.
>
> The right way to solve this kind of problem is to list all the functions
> you
> wish to be able to call in this way, and then explicitly define a mapping
> from keywords to the appropriate functions.  Which is exactly what you're
> doing in
>
> > 3. Place all my functions in dictionary and lookup the function to be
> > called
>
>
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
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