How do the methods __getattr__ and __getattribute__ affect access to object attributes in Python?

In Python, the methods __getattr__ and __getattribute__ are used to intercept access to object attributes, but they work differently.

• __getattribute__(self, name) is called always when attempting to access any attribute of an object. This is the most general access interceptor. If you do not call the base method within it (for example, super().__getattribute__(name)), you can easily create an infinite recursion.

• __getattr__(self, name) is called only if the attribute named name is not found by the usual means (i.e., it is absent from __dict__ and the classes).

Example:

class A:
    def __getattribute__(self, name):
        print(f"__getattribute__ called for {name}")
        return super().__getattribute__(name)

    def __getattr__(self, name):
        print(f"__getattr__ called for {name}")
        return f"Default value for {name}"

obj = A()
obj.existing = 42
print(obj.existing)  # __getattribute__ is called, returns 42
print(obj.missing)   # __getattribute__ is called, not found, then __getattr__ is called

Thus, __getattribute__ allows controlling all attribute access, while __getattr__ only handles cases of missing attributes.