How to convert string to class sub-attribute with Python

Question

I know I can get a Class's attributes with a string like this:

object.attribute = 'foo'
x = 'attribute'
getattr(object, x)
>>> 'foo'

Is there a way to "go deeper" into the object's attributes with a string? In other words, if my object contains another object, how can I get the the sub-object's attributes with a string? For example:

object.object.attribute

Answer 1

The operator.attrgetter function does this:

class Foo: pass
f = Foo()
f.bar = Foo()
f.bar.baz = Foo()
f.bar.baz.quux = "Found me!"

import operator
print operator.attrgetter("bar.baz.quux")(f)     # prints "Found me!"

Answer 2

I love the recipe given in this link (actually the comment is even better though)

Example borrowed from Claudiu's answer (which is great too):

class Foo: pass
f = Foo()
f.bar = Foo()
f.bar.baz = Foo()
f.bar.baz.quux = "Found me!"

A recursive getattr that follows dots:

>>> rgetattr = lambda o,a: reduce(getattr, a.split('.'), o)
>>> rgetattr(f, 'bar.baz.quux')
'Found me!'

The non-lambda version being:

def rgetattr(obj, attr):
    return reduce(getattr, attr.split('.'), obj)