How to check if a class member exists without getting exception

Question

For primitive types I can use the if in : boolean check. But if I use the in syntax to check for the existence of a class member I get a NameError exception. Is there a way in Python to check without an exception? Or is the only way to surround in try except block?

Here is my sample code.

class myclass:
    i = 0
    def __init__(self, num):
        self.i = num

mylist = [1,2,3]
if 7 in mylist:
    print "found it"
else:
    print "7 not present"  #prints 7 not present


x = myclass(3)
print x.i       #prints 3

#below line NameError: name 'counter' is not defined
if counter in x:
    print "counter in x"
else:
    print "No counter in x"

Answer 1

You can use hasattr

if hasattr(x, 'counter'):
    # whatever