Function 'hasattr()' doesn't work as I expected in Python

Question

Function 'hasattr()' doesn't work as I expected in Python

I have the following code:

#!/usr/bin/python
import re
import os
import sys

results=[{'data': {}, 'name': 'site1'}, {'data': {u'Brazil': '5/1', u'Panama': '2000/1'}, 'name': 'site2'}]

print results[1]
if hasattr(results[1]['data'], u'Brazil'):
    print 'has'
else:
    print 'hasn\'t'

When I run it, it gives me the output: hasn't.
I don't understand how to check the property if it exists.
I tried to remove u before Brazil but it doesn't work.
How to solve it?

Answer 1

hasattr(..) checks if an object has an attribute with the given name. But like the conditions says correctly, there is no somedict.Brazil.

You can check membership of a key in a dictionary with in, like:

if u'Brazil' in results[1]['data']:
    print 'has'
else:
    print 'hasn\'t'

Note that this only checks if there is a key in the dictionary that is equal to the given key (u'Brazil'), it does not check the values, for values, you can for instance use '5/1' in results[1]['data'].values(). Note that searching for keys is usually done in O(1), whereas searching for values will run in O(n).

Answer 2

hasattr operates on attributes, not on dictionary keys - if you can access it with dot notation (as in data.Brazil) then hasattr will return True, otherwise it will return False- and in this case it will return False.

Use in instead:

if u'Brazil' in results[1]['data']: