How to get a complete list of object's methods and attributes?

Bartosz_Radaczyski_985 0
Viewed 341689
dir(re.compile(pattern))

does not return pattern as one of the lists's elements. Namely it returns:

['__copy__', '__deepcopy__', 'findall', 'finditer', 'match', 'scanner', 'search', 'split', 'sub', 'subn']

According to the manual, it is supposed to contain

the object's attributes' names, the names of its class's attributes, and recursively of the attributes of its class's base classes.

It says also that

The list is not necessarily complete.

Is there a way to get the complete list? I always assumed that dir returns a complete list but apparently it does not...

Also: is there a way to list only attributes? Or only methods?

Edit: this is actually a bug in python -> supposedly it is fixed in the 3.0 branch (and perhaps also in 2.6)

python
5 Answers

For the complete list of attributes, the short answer is: no. The problem is that the attributes are actually defined as the arguments accepted by the getattr built-in function. As the user can reimplement __getattr__, suddenly allowing any kind of attribute, there is no possible generic way to generate that list. The dir function returns the keys in the __dict__ attribute, i.e. all the attributes accessible if the __getattr__ method is not reimplemented.

For the second question, it does not really make sense. Actually, methods are callable attributes, nothing more. You could though filter callable attributes, and, using the inspect module determine the class methods, methods or functions.

PierreBdR_71360
Moe_30510

Only to supplement:

  1. dir() is the most powerful/fundamental tool. (Most recommended)

  2. Solutions other than dir() merely provide their way of dealing the output of dir().

    Listing 2nd level attributes or not, it is important to do the sifting by yourself, because sometimes you may want to sift out internal vars with leading underscores __, but sometimes you may well need the __doc__ doc-string.

  3. __dir__() and dir() returns identical content.
  4. __dict__ and dir() are different. __dict__ returns incomplete content.

  5. IMPORTANT: __dir__() can be sometimes overwritten with a function, value or type, by the author for whatever purpose.

    Here is an example:

    \\...\\torchfun.py in traverse(self, mod, search_attributes)
445             if prefix in traversed_mod_names:
446                 continue
447             names = dir(m)
448             for name in names:
449                 obj = getattr(m,name)

    TypeError: descriptor __dir__ of 'object' object needs an argument

    The author of PyTorch modified the __dir__() method to something that requires an argument. This modification makes dir() fail.

  6. If you want a reliable scheme to traverse all attributes of an object, do remember that every pythonic standard can be overridden and may not hold, and every convention may be unreliable.

user_38299430
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