Calling class methods from inside class through locals()

Asked Sep 06 '15 at 19:09

Active Sep 06 '15 at 19:37

Viewed 19 times

I have a class with lots of methods whose names follow a pattern:

convert_to_A(self), convert_to_B(self), convert_to_C(self), ...

The user is going to provide me a list of functions to call. Say something like -

user_options = ["A", "G", "K", ...]

and I just stumbled upon the awesome globals(), locals() functions which I think are going to solve my problem. So a method inside the function which calls them through locals() should work right? -

def call_user_options(self):
    for step in self.user_options:
        locals()["convert_to_" + step]()

But it didn't. Also tried calling locals()["self.convert_to_" + step]() but it was of no avail. Printing locals() and globals() gives this -

locals = {'self': <__main__.test instance at 0x105466200>}
globals = {'__builtins__': <module '__builtin__' (built-in)>, '__file__': 'globals_locals.py', '__package__': None, 'test': <class __main__.test at 0x105429ae0>, '__name__': '__main__', 'main': <function main at 0x10544bed8>, '__doc__': None}

So how do I exactly call those methods from a method inside the class when they're hidden behind self ?

edited Sep 06 '15 at 19:37

John Kugelman

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asked Sep 06 '15 at 19:09

Parin Porecha

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Try: `getattr(self, "convert_to_" + step)()`. – Ashwini Chaudhary Sep 06 '15 at 19:10
This resolves it. Thanks! – Parin Porecha Sep 06 '15 at 19:16
I really don't recommend it, but you could also do something like: ``eval("convert_to_{}()".format(step))``. A major issue with this approach though is that you are executing whatever the user inputs without sanitizing it. – pzp Sep 06 '15 at 19:17

Calling class methods from inside class through locals()

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