Question

Suppose I have a class like this:

class Alphabet(object):
     __init__(self):
         self.__dict = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, ... 'z': 26}

     @property
     def a(self):
         return self.__dict['a']

     @property
     def b(self):
         return self.__dict['b']

     ...

     @property
     def z(self)
         return self.__dict['z']

This would be a long and cumbersome task to define and it seems highly redundant. Is there a way to dynamically create these properties? I know you can dynamically create attributes with the built-in setattr, but I want to have control over read/write/delete access (for this reason I want to use a property). Thanks!

Answer 1

Don’t use properties but implement the following methods:

• __getattr__(self, name)
• __setattr__(self, name, value)
• __delattr__(self, name)

See http://docs.python.org/reference/datamodel.html#customizing-attribute-access

Your __getattr__ method could look like this:

def __getattr__(self, name):
    try:
        return self.__dict[name]
    except KeyError:
        msg = "'{0}' object has no attribute '{1}'"
        raise AttributeError(msg.format(type(self).__name__, name))