What is getattr() exactly and how do I use it?

Question

I\'ve recently read about the getattr() function. The problem is that I still can\'t grasp the idea of its usage. The only thing I understand about getattr() is

Answer 1

getattr(object, 'x') is completely equivalent to object.x.

There are only two cases where getattr can be useful.

• you can't write object.x, because you don't know in advance which attribute you want (it comes from a string). Very useful for meta-programming.
• you want to provide a default value. object.y will raise an AttributeError if there's no y. But getattr(object, 'y', 5) will return 5.