introspection - Finding what methods a Python object has

Question

Given a Python object of any kind, is there an easy way to get the list of all methods that this object has?

Or,

if this is not possible, is there at least an easy way to check if it has a particular method other than simply checking if an error occurs when the method is called?

Answer 1

For many objects, you can use this code, replacing 'object' with the object you're interested in:

object_methods = [method_name for method_name in dir(object)
                  if callable(getattr(object, method_name))]

I discovered it at diveintopython.net (now archived). Hopefully, that should provide some further detail!

If you get an AttributeError, you can use this instead:

getattr( is intolerant of pandas style python3.6 abstract virtual sub-classes. This code does the same as above and ignores exceptions.

import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame([[10, 20, 30], [100, 200, 300]],
                  columns=['foo', 'bar', 'baz'])
def get_methods(object, spacing=20):
  methodList = []
  for method_name in dir(object):
    try:
        if callable(getattr(object, method_name)):
            methodList.append(str(method_name))
    except:
        methodList.append(str(method_name))
  processFunc = (lambda s: ' '.join(s.split())) or (lambda s: s)
  for method in methodList:
    try:
        print(str(method.ljust(spacing)) + ' ' +
              processFunc(str(getattr(object, method).__doc__)[0:90]))
    except:
        print(method.ljust(spacing) + ' ' + ' getattr() failed')

get_methods(df['foo'])