AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'customerid'

Question

I am trying to pass a text entry to print a specific pre-defined class entry, but keep getting the error

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'customerid'

I'm new to Python and this is part of my masters, so it's a steep learning curve for me :-D

class Customer:
    def __init__(self, customerid, name, address, phone, email = None):
        self.customerid = customerid
        self.name = name
        self.address = address
        self.phone = phone
        self.email = email

simon = Customer("SIM001","Simon","My Address","1234565789","[email protected]")
bob = Customer("BOB001","Bob","The Cobbles","808808808","[email protected]")
kermit = Customer("KER001","Kermit the Frog","Sessame Street","00000000","[email protected]")

request = str(input("enter a name of either simon, bob or kermit"))
print(request.customerid)
print(request.name)
print(request.address)
print(request.phone)
print(request.email)

Answer 1

What you are doing is taking input from the user and storing it in request variable which is an str and not connected to the Customer class in any way, what you should do is probably this:

if request=="simon":
    print(simon.customerid)
    ....

and so on for other values

Answer 2

input returns a string and you want a class.

there are a lot of ways to do that and I will show you a simple one.

class Customer:
    def __init__(self, customerid, name, address, phone, email = None):
        self.customerid = customerid
        self.name = name
        self.address = address
        self.phone = phone
        self.email = email

simon = Customer("SIM001","Simon","My Address","1234565789","[email protected]")
bob = Customer("BOB001","Bob","The Cobbles","808808808","[email protected]")
kermit = Customer("KER001","Kermit the Frog","Sessame Street","00000000","[email protected]")

request = input("enter a name of either simon, bob or kermit")

requestedCustomer = None

if request == 'simon':
    requestedCustomer = simon

elif request == 'bob':
    requestedCustomer = bob

elif request == 'kermit':
    requestedCustomer = kermit

if requestedCustomer:
    print(requestedCustomer.customerid)
    print(requestedCustomer.name)
    print(requestedCustomer.address)
    print(requestedCustomer.phone)
    print(requestedCustomer.email)
else:
    print('customer not found')

Answer 3

Many thanks everyone, I found an easier way

request = eval(input("enter the name of either simon, bob or kermit "))
that then allows me to use
print(request.customerid)

So my code now looks like this:

    class Customer:
    def __init__(self, customerid, name, address, phone, email = None):
        self.customerid = customerid
        self.name = name
        self.address = address
        self.phone = phone
        self.email = email
       
simon = Customer("SIM001","Simon","My Address","1234565789","[email protected]")
bob = Customer("BOB001","Bob","The Cobbles","808808808","[email protected]")
kermit = Customer("KER001","Kermit the Frog","Sessame Street","00000000","[email protected]")

request = eval(input("enter a name of either simon, bob or kermit "))
print(request.customerid)
print(request.name)
print(request.address)
print(request.phone)
print(request.email)