Why is __getattr__ not called for indexing operations?

Question

My question:

It seems that __getattr__ is not called for indexing operations, ie I can\'t use __getattr__ on a class

Answer 1

Python bypasses __getattr__, __getattribute__, and the instance dict when looking up "special" methods for implementing language mechanics. (For the most part, special methods are ones with two underscores on each side of the name.) If you were expecting i[0] to invoke i.__getitem__(0), which would in turn invoke i.__getattr__('__getitem__')(0), that's why that didn't happen.