Question

How can I get the list of class functions from within __getattr__ function?

Python v2.7 if it matters.

Trying to use dir within __getattr__ leads to infinite recursion.

class Hal(object):
    def __getattr__(self, name):
        print 'I don\'t have a %s function' % name
        names = dir(self) # <-- infinite recursion happens here
        print 'My functions are: %s' % ', '.join(names)
        exit()
    def close_door(self):
        pass
x = Hal()       
x.open_door()

Here’s the output I want:

I don't have a open_door function
My functions are: close_door, __getattr__, __init__, __doc__, ...

Any other solution which gets me the output I want will work fine. I want to do fuzzy string matching in the case when a function doesn’t exist to try to suggest what the user might have meant.

Answer 1

is there any reason why you can’t do this?

names = dir(self.__class__)

are you expecting consumers to extend instances of Hal to have custom methods?

if you only want methods you’ve implemented, with no built-ins listed, you could try this too:

names = [prop for prop in dir(self.__class__) if prop[1] != "_"]