Question

In Python, given the string'int', how can I get the type int? Using getattr(current_module, 'int') doesn’t work.

Answer 1

int isn’t part of the namespace of your current module; it’s part of the __builtins__ namespace. So you would run getattr on __builtins__.

To verify that it’s a type you can just check whether it’s an instance of type, since all types are derived from it.

>>> getattr(__builtins__, 'int')
<type 'int'>
>>> foo = getattr(__builtins__, 'int')
>>> isinstance(foo, type)
True