Question

I currently have this code:

class Generator(object):
    def __getattr__(self, name):    
        def f(self):
            return ("Result of"+name, self)
        f.__name__ = name
        return f

    def foo(self):
        pass

g = Generator()
print g.foo
print Generator.foo
print g.bar
print Generator.bar

Which gives:

<bound method Generator.foo of <__main__.Generator object at 0x00B62D30>>
<unbound method Generator.foo>
<function bar at 0x00A9DE70>
AttributeError: type object 'Generator' has no attribute 'bar'

What do I have to do to make it give:

<bound method Generator.foo of <__main__.Generator object at 0x00B62D30>>
<unbound method Generator.foo>
<bound method Generator.bar of <__main__.Generator object at 0x00B62D30>>
<unbound method Generator.bar>

Answer 1

Here’s a metaclass that adds the __getattr__ function from the class definition back to the metaclass itself. This avoids having to define the function in multiple places, or as a separate global function defined beforehand and added individually to the metaclass and class.

class Meta(type):

    def __new__(mcls, name, bases, dikt):
        fgetattr = dikt.get('__getattr__')
        if fgetattr is not None:
            setattr(mcls, '__getattr__', fgetattr)
        return super(Meta, mcls).__new__(mcls, name, bases, dikt)

class Generator(object):
    __metaclass__ = Meta

    def __getattr__(obj, name):

        def f(self):
            return "Result of %s for %r" % (name, self)
        f.__name__ = name

        if isinstance(obj, type):
            setattr(obj, name, f)
        else:
            setattr(type(obj), name, f)
        return getattr(obj, name)

Rather than directly create the method via the dynamic function’s __get__ descriptor method, I think it’s better to store the function in the class dict and rely on getattr to return the proper bound/unbound method. Subsequent attribute access will use the function from the class. Since the same __getattr__ function is used for both the class and the instance, an isinstance check is required to ensure the dynamic function gets stored to the class and not the instance.

In Python 3, getting the function as an attribute of the class merely returns the function since unbound methods were removed from the language. Also, the metaclass syntax has changed to a keyword argument in the class definition line.

Test:

>>> g = Generator()
>>> g.foo
<bound method Generator.foo of <__main__.Generator object at 0xb7248c2c>>
>>> Generator.foo
<unbound method Generator.foo>
>>> g.bar
<bound method Generator.bar of <__main__.Generator object at 0xb7248c2c>>
>>> Generator.bar
<unbound method Generator.bar>
>>> g.foo()
'Result of foo for <__main__.Generator object at 0xb7248c2c>'
>>> Generator.foo(g)
'Result of foo for <__main__.Generator object at 0xb7248c2c>'
>>> 'foo' in vars(Generator), 'bar' in vars(Generator)
(True, True)