How do you programmatically set an attribute?

python attributes object
Nick picture Nick · Nov 12, 2008 · Viewed 213.3k times · Source

Suppose I have a python object x and a string s, how do I set the attribute s on x? So:

>>> x = SomeObject()
>>> attr = 'myAttr'
>>> # magic goes here
>>> x.myAttr
'magic'

What's the magic? The goal of this, incidentally, is to cache calls to x.__getattr__().

Answer

Ali Afshar picture Ali Afshar · Nov 12, 2008 
setattr(x, attr, 'magic')

For help on it:

>>> help(setattr)
Help on built-in function setattr in module __builtin__:

setattr(...)
    setattr(object, name, value)

    Set a named attribute on an object; setattr(x, 'y', v) is equivalent to
    ``x.y = v''.

Edit: However, you should note (as pointed out in a comment) that you can't do that to a "pure" instance of object. But it is likely you have a simple subclass of object where it will work fine. I would strongly urge the O.P. to never make instances of object like that.

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