How do I get the name of the class used to create an instance of an object in Python?

General Discussions
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1

How do I get the name of the class used to create an instance of an object in Python?

I’m unsure whether I should use the inspect module or parse the __class__ attribute to get the name of the class.

2

Hey there! Hope you’re doing well. If you’re looking to retrieve the name of a class in Python, a quick and efficient way is to use the __class__ attribute. Every object in Python has a __class__ attribute, which refers to the class of the object. You can access the class name easily through this.

Here’s a simple example:

class MyClass:
    pass

obj = MyClass()
class_name = obj.__class__.__name__
print(f"The class name is: {class_name}")

This method is straightforward and efficient for getting the class name. It’s a great way to keep things simple!

3

Hey! Hope you’re having a great day. Just adding on to @dimplesaini.230’s answer,

Another way to get the class name is by using the type() function. The type() function returns the type of an object, which is essentially the class of that object. Once we have the type, we can access its __name__ attribute to get the class name.

Here’s an example:

class MyClass:
    pass

obj = MyClass()
class_name = type(obj).__name__
print(f"The class name is: {class_name}")

This approach is just as simple and works well for most use cases. It’s another great option to retrieve the class name in Python!

4

Hey! I hope you’re doing well today. Just wanted to expand on the previous answers. If you want to dive a bit deeper into the details, you could use the inspect module. This module allows you to gather detailed information about objects, which can be helpful when you’re dealing with complex class hierarchies or want additional reflection capabilities.

Here’s how you can do that:

import inspect

class MyClass:
    pass

obj = MyClass()
class_name = inspect.getmembers(obj, inspect.isclass)[0][0]
print(f"The class name is: {class_name}")

While this method is more powerful and flexible, it’s usually only necessary when you need to work with complex objects or want to reflect more deeply on an object. For most simple cases, the previous methods are perfect!