Calling a function from a string with the function's name in Python *

Question

What is the best way to go about calling a function given a string with the function's name in a Python program. For example, let's say that I have a module foo, and I have a string whose contents are "bar". What is the best way to go about calling foo.bar()?

I need to get the return value of the function, which is why I don't just use eval. I figured out how to do it by using eval to define a temp function that returns the result of that function call, but I'm hoping that there is a more elegant way to do this.

Answer

Assuming module foo with method bar:

import foo
methodToCall = getattr(foo, 'bar')
result = methodToCall()

As far as that goes, lines 2 and 3 can be compressed to:

result = getattr(foo, 'bar')()

if that makes more sense for your use case. You can use getattr in this fashion on class instance bound methods, module-level methods, class methods... the list goes on.

< br > via < a class="StackLink" href=" http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3061/" >Calling a function from a string with the function's name in Python< /a>

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