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getattr() Built-in Function

getattr() is a built-in function that lets you to get the value of an attribute by giving its name as a string.

class Rectangle:
    def __init__(self, b, h):
        self.b = b
        self.h = h

rect = Rectangle(10, 5)
print("Base:", getattr(rect, "b"))
print("Height:", getattr(rect, "h"))

As seen in the example, getattr(rect, "b") is equivalent to rect.b. The first attribute must be an object; the second, a string containing the name of an attribute of that object.

If the attribute does not exist, the AttributeError exception is thrown, unless a default value is given as the third argument.

# 50 is the default value.
print("Area:", getattr(rect, "area", 50))

built-ins oop

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