calling methods using variables

[Haze]

Hey just wondering if you can do something like that with variables for example

class test(object):
    a = 55
    def dispmenu(self): print self.a

instance = test()

How would i be able to call "instance.dispmenu()" without having to type that.
Some things i have tried

action1 = instance.dispmenu()
print action1
action1

This does run the instance.dispmenu() but it runs it on the "action1 =" lines not the action1 line which doesn't seem to do anything. Also the "print action1" line outputs 'None'

action2 = dispmenu()
print action2
instance.action2

This fails on the first line with "NameError: name 'dispmenu' is not defined"

So then i tried

action3 = 'dispmenu()'
print action3
instance.action3

The print line does output dispmenu() but this fails on line 3 with "AttributeError: 'test' object has no attribute 'action3'"

I didn't expect any of these to work but i thought i may as well try before asking. I'm sure I'm either missing something or its just not possible any help would be great.

[slate]

Wow. I am puzzled.

instance.dispmenu()#displays menu
dm=instance.dispmenu
dm()#displays menu too
dms='dispmenu'
eval('instance.'+dms+'()')# displays menu too
getattr(instance,"dispmenu")() # displays menu too

[jrcagle]

I'm not getting your results:

class test(object):
    a = 55
    def dispmenu(self): print self.a


>>> 
>>> instance = test()
>>> 
>>> instance.dispmenu()
55
>>> action1 = instance.dispmenu()

55
>>> print action1
None

Here's what I think you want to do:

>>> action1 = instance.dispmenu
>>> action1()
55

So the way to read this is, action1 is assigned to instance.dispmenu, and then the () force calling action1.

Does that help?

Jeff