[Tutor] __getattr__ can't be a staticmethod?

[Kent Johnson]

On Sat, May 24, 2008 at 2:45 AM, inhahe <inhahe at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 10:47 PM, Kent Johnson <kent37 at tds.net> wrote:
>> On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 7:52 PM, inhahe <inhahe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> why doesn't this work?
>>>
>>>>>> class a:
>>> ...   @staticmethod
>>> ...   def __getattr__(attr):
>>> ...     return "I am a dork"
>>> ...
>>>>>> f = a()
>>>>>> f.hi
>>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>>  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
>>> TypeError: 'staticmethod' object is not callable
>>

> I wanted to set getattr on a class.  I don't need an object.  I'm not
> really getting anything
> specific to the class or an object of it.  i'm using it because f.hi()
> is easier than f('hi')().

In your example, f is an instance and normal getattr would do what you
want. For example:
class a:
 def __getattr__(self, attr):
   return "I am a dork"

f = a()
print f.hi

prints "I am a dork"

If you want to be able to ask for a.hi then you need a metaclass - you
have to define __getattr__() in the class of a, which is its
metaclass:

class meta(type):
   def __getattr__(self, attr):
     return "I am a dork"

class b(object):
   __metaclass__ = meta

print b.hi

Kent