Get Function from Modules Using Its Name

How to get the function defined in the current module using its name.

Sometimes we need to obtain a function defined in a certain module using its name. If the function you are calling is defined in the same module, we can use globals() or locals():

• globals() returns a dictionary with the global symbol table:

  func = globals()["func_name"]

• locals() returns a dictionary with the current local symbol table:

  func = locals()["func_name"]

def demo_func(*args, **kwargs):
    pass


def test_locals(*args, **kwargs):
    "Test whether we can get the local functions using locals()"
    def local_demo_func(self, *args, **kwargs):
        pass

    return locals()['local_demo_func'] == local_demo_func


# `globals()` returns a dictionary with the global symbol table:
assert globals()['demo_func'] == demo_func
# `locals()` returns a dictionary with the current local symbol table
assert test_locals()

If it’s defined another module, we can simply do

import foo

func = getattr(foo, 'demo_func')

For example:

from datetime import date

assert getattr(date, 'today') == date.today