A get() like method for checking for Python attributes

Question

If I had a dictionary dict and I wanted to check for dict[\'key\'] I could either do so in a try block (bleh!) or use the get()<

Answer 1

Do you mean hasattr() perhaps?

hasattr(object, "attribute name") #Returns True or False

Python.org doc - Built in functions - hasattr()

You can also do this, which is a bit more cluttered and doesn't work for methods.

"attribute" in obj.__dict__

Answer 2

A more direct analogue to dict.get(key, default) than hasattr is getattr.

val = getattr(obj, 'attr_to_check', default_value)

(Where default_value is optional, raising an exception on no attribute if not found.)

For your example, you would pass False.

Answer 3

For checking if a key is in a dictionary you can use in: 'key' in dictionary.

For checking for attributes in object use the hasattr() function: hasattr(obj, 'attribute')