How does Python know whether a variable in the class is a method or a variable

Question

print(hasattr(int,         '__call__'))
print(hasattr(lambda x: x, '__call__'))
print('')

class A(object):
    a = int
    b = lambda x : x

print(A.a)
print(A.b)

Gives an output of: 

True
True

<type 'int'>
<unbound method A.<lambda>>

How does Python decide what is going to be a method (as A.b is here) and what is just going to be itself (as A.a is here)?

Answer 1

In python objects/variables are wrapped into methods if they are function (i.e type( xxx ) gives FunctionType)

This is because the FunctionType defines a __get__ method, implementing the descriptor protocol, which changes what happens when A.b is looked up. int and most other non-function callables do not define this method:

>>> (lambda x: x).__get__
<method-wrapper '__get__' of function object at 0x0000000003710198>
>>> int.__get__
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#43>", line 1, in <module>
    int.__get__
AttributeError: type object 'int' has no attribute '__get__'

You could make your own method-wrapper-like behavior by defining some other sort of descriptor. An example of this is the property. property is a type that is not a function, but also defines a __get__ (and __set__) to change what happens when a property is looked up