How to call a function from a list?

Question

For example, I have the following list:

method = [fun1, fun2, fun3, fun4]

Then I show a menu where the user must select a number from 1-4 ( len(method) ). If the user selects i , I have to use the function funi . How can I do that?

Eg.

A=['hello','bye','goodbye']
def hello(n):
 print n**2
def bye(n):
 print n**3
def goodbye(n):
 print n**4

If I want to call the function bye by the array A, using

>>>A[1](7)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#0>", line 1, in <module>
A[2](5)
TypeError: 'str' object is not callable

How can I use the names saved in A to call my functions? because every method is saved in a string.

Answer 1

Let's see...

You call a function fn by using parens () as in fn()

You access an item from a list by the indexing operator [] as in lst[idx]

So, by combining the two lst[idx](*args)

EDIT

Python list indices are zero-based, so for the first item is 0, the second 1, etc... If the user selects 1-4, you'll have to subtract one.

EDIT

Given the clarification, the following can be done

def method1():
    pass

def method2():
    pass


methods = [method1, method2]

And you can use the logic above. This way you won't have to mess with actual resolving the string of a name of the function to the actual function.

Keep in mind that functions in python are first class so you can store a reference of them to a list (what we do in methods=[] line)

Answer 2

In your list are not functions but strings (which have "randomly" the same name as the functions). Just put the functions inside the list:

def hello():
    pass

mylist = [hello]
mylist[0]()

If you need the name of a function you can use a.__name__ eg

def hello():
    pass
mylist = [hello]
print("Available functions:")
for function in mylist:
    print(function.__name__)