class FilterCollection:
	def __init__(self):
		self.system = ''
		self.customer = ''
		self.status = ''

	def get_by_name(self, name):
		if (name == 'system'):
			return self.system
		elif(name == 'customer'):
			return self.customer
		elif(name == 'status'):
			return self.status

class a:
	def __init__(self):
		self.a=5
		self.b='test'
	def get(self,name):return self.__dict__[name]
b=a()
b.get('a')

class FilterCollection:
    def __init__(self):
        self.system = ''
        self.customer = ''
        self.status = ''

    def get_by_name(self, name):
        return getattr(self, name, None)

[crchemist@test ~]$ cat ss.py
ATTR_NAME = 'status'

class FilterCollection(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.system = ''
        self.customer = ''
        self.status = '200 OK'

fc = FilterCollection()
if hasattr(fc, ATTR_NAME):
    print getattr(fc, ATTR_NAME)
else:
    print 'No such attribute'
[crchemist@test ~]$ python ss.py
200 OK
[crchemist@test ~]$

[crchemist@test ~]$ cat ss.py
class A(object):
    __slots__ = ('obj_attr_not_in_dict')

    class_attr = 'i am class attr in class dict'
    def __init__(self):
        self.obj_attr_not_in_dict = 'i am object attr not in dict'

    @property
    def i_am_descriptor(self):
        return 'i am not simple attr - i am descriptor'
[crchemist@test ~]$ python
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Jul  5 2008, 03:54:54)
[GCC 4.3.0 20080428 (Red Hat 4.3.0-8)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from ss import A
>>> a = A()
>>> a.__dict__
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'A' object has no attribute '__dict__'
>>> a.obj_attr_not_in_dict
'i am object attr not in dict'
>>> a.__class__.__dict__.items()
[('__module__', 'ss'), ('i_am_descriptor', <property object at 0x956bd24>), ('class_attr', 'i am class attr in class dict'), ('obj_attr_not_in_dict', <member 'obj_attr_not_in_dict' of 'A' objects>), ('__slots__', 'obj_attr_not_in_dict'), ('__doc__', None), ('__init__', <function __init__ at 0x9569304>)]
>>> a.__class__.__dict__.get('i_am_descriptor')
<property object at 0x956bd24>
>>>

>>> a.__class__.__dict__.get('i_am_descriptor')
<property object at 0x956bd24>
>>> a.i_am_descriptor
'i am not simple attr - i am descriptor'

class FilterCollection(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.system = 'ss'
        self.customer = ''
        self.status = ''

    get_by_name = object.__getattribute__