Brief about Object
In Python, an object is an instance of a class. A class is a blueprint for creating objects (a particular data structure), providing initial values for state (member variables or attributes), and implementations of behavior (member functions or methods). Objects are instances of a class and are created by calling the class name as if it were a function.
For example, the following class definition:
class MyClass:
x = 5
y = "hello"
obj = MyClass()
‘obj‘ is an object, an instance of the class ‘MyClass‘.
Objects can have both attributes (data) and methods (functions) associated with them. The attributes store the object’s state and the methods define the object’s behavior.
When an object is created from a class, it is said to be instantiated, and the process of creating an object is called instantiation. Once an object is instantiated, its attributes can be accessed and its methods can be called using the dot notation.
Attribute in Python
In Python, an attribute is a characteristic or property of an object. Attributes are also known as member variables or fields. They are defined within a class and are used to store data that is associated with a specific object. Attributes are accessed using the dot notation (e.g., object.attribute) and can be used to store any type of data, such as numbers, strings, lists, etc.
For example, in the following class definition:
class MyClass:
x = 5
y = "hello"
obj = MyClass()
‘x‘ and ‘y‘ are attributes of the class ‘MyClass‘. They can be accessed using the dot notation like ‘obj.x‘ and ‘obj.y‘
In addition to class-level attributes, attributes can also be added to objects at runtime using the dot notation, which creates an instance-specific attribute.
To know if an Object has an Attribute in Python
In Python, you can use the built-in ‘hasattr()‘ function to check if an object has a specific attribute. The function takes two arguments: the object and the string name of the attribute. It returns ‘True‘ if the object has the attribute and ‘False‘ otherwise.
For example:
class MyClass:
x = 5
obj = MyClass()
print(hasattr(obj, 'x')) # True
print(hasattr(obj, 'y')) # False
You can also use the ‘getattr()‘ function to check if an object has an attribute without raising an AttributeError if it does not.
print(getattr(obj, 'z', None)) # None
