Get int-type from 'int' string

Question

In Python, given the string\'int\', how can I get the type int? Using getattr(current_module, \'int\') doesn\'t work.

Answer 1

If you don't want to use eval, you can just store a mapping from string to type in a dict, and look it up:

>>> typemap = dict()
>>> for type in (int, float, complex): typemap[type.__name__] = type
...
>>> user_input = raw_input().strip()
int
>>> typemap.get(user_input)

>>> user_input = raw_input().strip()
monkey-butter
>>> typemap.get(user_input)
>>>