How to add property to a class dynamically?

Question

The goal is to create a mock class which behaves like a db resultset.

So for example, if a database query returns, using a dict expression, {\'ab\':100, \'cd\'

Answer 1

The best way to achieve is by defining __slots__. That way your instances can't have new attributes.

ks = ['ab', 'cd']
vs = [12, 34]

class C(dict):
    __slots__ = []
    def __init__(self, ks, vs): self.update(zip(ks, vs))
    def __getattr__(self, key): return self[key]

if __name__ == "__main__":
    c = C(ks, vs)
    print c.ab

That prints 12

    c.ab = 33

That gives: AttributeError: 'C' object has no attribute 'ab'

Answer 2

It seems you could solve this problem much more simply with a namedtuple, since you know the entire list of fields ahead of time.

from collections import namedtuple

Foo = namedtuple('Foo', ['bar', 'quux'])

foo = Foo(bar=13, quux=74)
print foo.bar, foo.quux

foo2 = Foo()  # error

If you absolutely need to write your own setter, you'll have to do the metaprogramming at the class level; property() doesn't work on instances.

Answer 3

You don't need to use a property for that. Just override __setattr__ to make them read only.

class C(object):
    def __init__(self, keys, values):
        for (key, value) in zip(keys, values):
            self.__dict__[key] = value

    def __setattr__(self, name, value):
        raise Exception("It is read only!")

Tada.

>>> c = C('abc', [1,2,3])
>>> c.a
1
>>> c.b
2
>>> c.c
3
>>> c.d
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'C' object has no attribute 'd'
>>> c.d = 42
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 6, in __setattr__
Exception: It is read only!
>>> c.a = 'blah'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 6, in __setattr__
Exception: It is read only!

Answer 4

Here is a solution that:

• Allows specifying property names as strings, so they can come from some outside data source instead of all being listed in your program.
• Adds the properties when the class is defined, instead of every time an object is created.

After the class has been defined, you just do this to add a property to it dynamically:

setattr(SomeClass, 'propertyName', property(getter, setter))

Here is a complete example, tested in Python 3:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

class Foo():
  pass

def get_x(self):
  return 3

def set_x(self, value):
  print("set x on %s to %d" % (self, value))

setattr(Foo, 'x', property(get_x, set_x))

foo1 = Foo()
foo1.x = 12
print(foo1.x)

Answer 5

For those coming from search engines, here are the two things I was looking for when talking about dynamic properties:

class Foo:
    def __init__(self):
        # we can dynamically have access to the properties dict using __dict__
        self.__dict__['foo'] = 'bar'

assert Foo().foo == 'bar'


# or we can use __getattr__ and __setattr__ to execute code on set/get
class Bar:
    def __init__(self):
        self._data = {}
    def __getattr__(self, key):
        return self._data[key]
    def __setattr__(self, key, value):
        self._data[key] = value

bar = Bar()
bar.foo = 'bar'
assert bar.foo == 'bar'

__dict__ is good if you want to put dynamically created properties. __getattr__ is good to only do something when the value is needed, like query a database. The set/get combo is good to simplify the access to data stored in the class (like in the example above).

If you only want one dynamic property, have a look at the property() built-in function.

Answer 6

You cannot add a new property() to an instance at runtime, because properties are data descriptors. Instead you must dynamically create a new class, or overload __getattribute__ in order to process data descriptors on instances.