Python: How to update an attribute programmatically?

Question

I'm looking for a way to update an attribute programmatically (especially when inside an update() function of an SQLAlchemy class)

def update(self, **kwargs):
    for kwarg in kwargs:
        setattribute(self, kwarg, kwargs[kwarg])

This does not seem to work, neither this:

def update(self, **kwargs):
    for kwarg in kwargs:
        self[kwarg] = kwargs[kwarg]

[`setattr(self, key, value)`](https://docs.python.org/2/library/functions.html#setattr)? — dhke, Jul 14 '17 at 18:58
I'm not sure what you're doing, but this doesn't look like a good idea to me. You usually want to [keep data out of your variable names](https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201112/keep_data_out_of_your_variable_names.html) — That1Guy, Jul 14 '17 at 19:01

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 14 '17 at 19:01

3

def update(self, **kwargs):
    for key, value in kwargs.items():
        setattr(self, key, value)

answered Jul 14 '17 at 19:01

dhke

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 14 '17 at 19:00

1

kwargs is a dict, you can iterate on its keys and values with items():

def update(self, **kwargs):
    for key, value in kwargs.items():
        setattr(self, key, value)

answered Jul 14 '17 at 19:00

Thierry Lathuille

2 Answers2