Equivalent of ruby obj.send in python

Question

In ruby if I have an object obj, with a method called funcname, I can call the method using the following syntax obj.send(funcname)

Is there something similar in python.

The reason I want to do this, that I have a switch statement where I set the funcname, and want to call it at the end of the switch statement.

Answer 1

getattr(obj, "name")(args)

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Answer 2

hmmm... getattr(obj, funcname)(*args, **kwargs) ?

>>> s = "Abc"

>>> s.upper()
'ABC'

>>> getattr(s, "upper")()
'ABC'

>>> getattr(s, "lower")()
'abc'

Answer 3

Apart from the already mentioned getattr() builtin:

As an alternative to an if-elif-else loop you can use a dictionary to map your "cases" to the desired functions/methods:

# given func_a, func_b and func_default already defined
function_dict = {
    'a': func_a,
    'b': func_b  
}
x = 'a'
function_dict(x)() # -> func_a()
function_dict.get('xyzzy', func_default)() # fallback to -> func_c

Concerning methods instead of plain functions:

• you can just turn the above example into method_dict using for example lambda obj: obj.method_a() instead of function_a etc., and then do method_dict[case](obj)
• you can use getattr() as other answers have already mentioned, but you only need it if you really need to get the method from its name.
• operator.methodcaller() from the stdlib is a nice shortcut in some cases: based on a method name, and optionally some arguments, it creates a function that calls the method with that name on another object (and if you provided any extra arguments when creating the methodcaller, it will call the method with these arguments)