Use a string to call function in Python [duplicate]

Answer 1

You could use eval():

myString = "fullName( name = 'Joe', family = 'Brand' )"
result = eval(myString)

Beware though, eval() is considered evil by many people.

Answer 2

This does not exactly answer your question, but maybe it helps nevertheless:

As mentioned, eval should be avoided if possible. A better way imo is to use dictionary unpacking. This is also very dynamic and less error prone.

Example:

def fullName(name = "noName", family = "noFamily"):
    return name + family

functionList = {'fullName': fullName}

function = 'fullName'
parameters = {'name': 'Foo', 'family': 'Bar'}

print functionList[function](**parameters)
# prints FooBar

parameters = {'name': 'Foo'}
print functionList[function](**parameters)
# prints FoonoFamily

Answer 3

I know this question is rather old, but you could do something like this:

argsdict = {'name': 'Joe', 'family': 'Brand'}
globals()['fullName'](**argsdict)

argsdict is a dictionary of argument, globals calls the function using a string, and ** expands the dictionary to a parameter list. Much cleaner than eval. The only trouble lies in splitting up the string. A (very messy) solution:

example = 'fullName(name=\'Joe\',family=\'Brand\')'
# Split at left parenthesis
funcname, argsstr = example.split('(')
# Split the parameters
argsindex = argsstr.split(',')
# Create an empty dictionary
argsdict = dict()
# Remove the closing parenthesis
# Could probably be done better with re...
argsindex[-1] = argsindex[-1].replace(')', '')
for item in argsindex:
    # Separate the parameter name and value
    argname, argvalue = item.split('=')
    # Add it to the dictionary
    argsdict.update({argname: argvalue})
# Call our function
globals()[funcname](**argsdict)