What would be a way to check if a variable or class existed in an if?

[Larz60+]

You can do it with inspect:

class MyTestClass:
    def __init__(self):
        self.list1 = [ ]
        self.fptr = self.method_a
        self.mamals = {
            'rat': {'has_tail': True},
            'dog': {'has_tail': True},
            'guppy': {'has_tail': False, 'has_fin': True}
        }
        self.fptr()

    def method_a(self):
        pass

def try_me():
    import inspect
    from pprint import pprint

    mtc = MyTestClass()

    # Get everything
    for name, member in inspect.getmembers(mtc):
        if name.startswith('__'):
            continue
        pprint(f'name: {name}, member: {member}')

if __name__ == "__main__":
    try_me()

output:

Output:
('name: fptr, member: <bound method MyTestClass.method_a of '
 '<__main__.MyTestClass object at 0x00000000028CBE10>>')
'name: list1, member: []'
("name: mamals, member: {'rat': {'has_tail': True}, 'dog': {'has_tail': True}, "
 "'guppy': {'has_tail': False, 'has_fin': True}}")
('name: method_a, member: <bound method MyTestClass.method_a of '
 '<__main__.MyTestClass object at 0x00000000028CBE10>>')