Python: show all methods in a given object or module (Shallow Thoughts)

Python: show all methods in a given object or module

A silly little thing, but something that Python books mostly don't mention and I can never find via Google:

How do you find all the methods in a given class, object or module?

Ideally the documentation would tell you. Wouldn't that be nice? But in the real world, you can't count on that, and examining all of an object's available methods can often give you a good guess at how to do whatever you're trying to do.

Python objects keep their symbol table in a dictionary called __dict__ (that's two underscores on either end of the word). So just look at object.__dict__. If you just want the names of the functions, use object.__dict__.keys().

Thanks to JanC for suggesting dir(object) and help(object), which can be more helpful -- not all objects have a __dict__.

Tags: programming, python, tips
[ 12:44 Jun 19, 2009    More programming | permalink to this entry | ]