How to pass and call a function name as a variable

Question

Is there a way to pass function name as a variable and call it as a fucntion. For example, converting a tuple to a list by passing list as a variable:

l=(1,2)
x=list
b=%s(l)%(x) #list(l)

edited

Sorry for giving you only half of the problem. A user inputs the function name like this

l=(1,2) 
f=raw_input("Enter the name:") 
len(f(l))
TypeError: 'str' object is not callable

• timgeb: I don't understand what you mean with b=%s(l)%(x). But you could do x(l).
• zondo: b = x(l) is the easy way. You don't need the name of the function to call it; you just need the function itself. Since you say x=list, x now refers to that function, so you can use x(l) just like that.

Answer 1

Yes, you can assign a function name to a variable and then call it as a function:

l = (1,2)
x = list
answer = x(l)
print(answer)

Output

[1, 2]

Answer 2

If your variable is a string representing a name, you can look it up using globals:

x_name = 'list'
x = globals()[x_name]
y = x((1,2))

In the latter case, you can also use eval, but it isn't recommended, because eval is evil.

(Note that list is a type, not a function, but is callable nevertheless, so it works.)