How to get class path in Python

Question

In Python, we can define a class and print it as such:

class a: num = 1 b = a() print(b)

And we would get the output:

<class '__main__.a'>

I'm trying to identify unique classes, and I have some classes with longer paths. I would like to extract the "class path", or __main__.a in the case above. For example, if I print some longer class I would get:

<class 'django_seed.tests.Game'> <class 'django_seed.tests.Player'> <class 'django_seed.tests.Action'>

And I would like to extract:

'django_seed.tests.Game' 'django_seed.tests.Player' 'django_seed.tests.Action'

Since I can cast <class 'django_seed.tests.Game'> to a string, I can substring it quite easily with '<class 'django_seed.tests.Game'>'[8:-2], but I'm sure there must be a cleaner way. Thanks!

Iain Shelvington · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-02 23:55:48Z

13

The __module__ attribute can be used to access the "path" of a class (where it was defined) and the __name__ attribute returns the name of the class as a string

print(f'{YourClass.__module__}.{YourClass.__name__}')

edited Aug 2, 2020 at 23:55

answered Aug 2, 2020 at 23:43

Iain Shelvington

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Iain Shelvington Over a year ago

@ReinstateMonica If the class was defined in __main__ then cls.__module__ returns __main__

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