I'm trying to instantiate a class object whose desired name is held in a variable that's created elsewhere.
I can't figure out how to make the instance of the class have the name held by the variable.
example:
class foo: def __init__(self): self.var1 = "bar" if __name__ == "__main__": test = "a" # returned by another func. [string held by variable 'test'] = foo() print a.var1 Is this possible? (or even advisable...)
It is not advisable, since it makes it difficult to program with the variable a when you do not know its name until run-time.
You might think about using a dict instead:
data = {} test = func() # "a" data[test] = foo() 
A function is probably better - that way the work you need to do is encapsulated and can be re-used:
def do_work(an_instance_of_foo): print an_instance_of_foo.var1 class foo: def __init__(self): self.var1 = "bar" if __name__ == "__main__": do_work(foo()) If you also need the word, you can pass it to the function:
def do_work(an_instance_of_foo, my_word): # etc. Alternately, you can use a dictionary as a namespace (as @unutbu has suggested) if you need the instance of foo to be associated with a particular name.
