Beginner Python: AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute

Question

The error says:

AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'cost' 

I am trying to get a simple profit calculation to work using the following class to handle a dictionary of bicycles:

class Bike(object):
    def __init__(self, name, weight, cost):
        self.name = name
        self.weight = weight
        self.cost = cost

bikes = {
    # Bike designed for children"
    "Trike": ["Trike", 20, 100],
    # Bike designed for everyone"
    "Kruzer": ["Kruzer", 50, 165]
    }

When I try to calculate profit with my for statement, I get the attribute error.

# Markup of 20% on all sales
margin = .2
# Revenue minus cost after sale
for bike in bikes.values():
    profit = bike.cost * margin

First, I don't know why it is referring to a list, and everything seems to be defined, no?

Solution 1

Consider:

class Bike(object):
    def __init__(self, name, weight, cost):
        self.name = name
        self.weight = weight
        self.cost = cost

bikes = {
    # Bike designed for children"
    "Trike": Bike("Trike", 20, 100),      # <--
    # Bike designed for everyone"
    "Kruzer": Bike("Kruzer", 50, 165),    # <--
    }

# Markup of 20% on all sales
margin = .2
# Revenue minus cost after sale
for bike in bikes.values():
    profit = bike.cost * margin
    print(profit)

Output:

33.0
20.0

The difference is that in your bikes dictionary, you're initializing the values as lists [...]. Instead, it looks like the rest of your code wants Bike instances. So create Bike instances: Bike(...).

As for your error

AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'cost'

this will occur when you try to call .cost on a list object. Pretty straightforward, but we can figure out what happened by looking at where you call .cost -- in this line:

profit = bike.cost * margin

This indicates that at least one bike (that is, a member of bikes.values() is a list). If you look at where you defined bikes you can see that the values were, in fact, lists. So this error makes sense.

But since your class has a cost attribute, it looked like you were trying to use Bike instances as values, so I made that little change:

[...] -> Bike(...)

and you're all set.

Solution 2

They are lists because you type them as lists in the dictionary:

bikes = {
    # Bike designed for children"
    "Trike": ["Trike", 20, 100],
    # Bike designed for everyone"
    "Kruzer": ["Kruzer", 50, 165]
    }

You should use the bike-class instead:

bikes = {
    # Bike designed for children"
    "Trike": Bike("Trike", 20, 100),
    # Bike designed for everyone"
    "Kruzer": Bike("Kruzer", 50, 165)
    }

This will allow you to get the cost of the bikes with bike.cost as you were trying to.

for bike in bikes.values():
    profit = bike.cost * margin
    print(bike.name + " : " + str(profit))

This will now print:

Kruzer : 33.0
Trike : 20.0

Solution 3

You need to pass the values of the dict into the Bike constructor before using like that. Or, see the namedtuple -- seems more in line with what you're trying to do.

Comments

[Kevin]

This would be a better answer if you explained the difference between your code and OP's.

[jedwards]

@Kevin edited it after I posted it -- actually going to revise it again to explain the initial error.