Nested try statements in python?

Question

Is there a nicer way of doing the following:

try:
    a.method1()
except AttributeError:
    try:
        a.method2()
    except AttributeError:
        try:         


        

Answer 1

method = (
        getattr(a, 'method1', None) or
        getattr(a, 'method2', None) or
        getattr(a, 'method3')
        )
method()

This will first look for method1, then method2, then method3. The search will stop as soon as one of them is found. If none of the methods are found the last getattr will raise an exception.