Intercom’s docs state the following:

All objects in the API have an id field indicating their logical identifier. Some objects may optionally also have a self field that indicates a URL or canonical address for the object.

self A URL that addresses the object within the API. The self field will not be larger than 255 characters (in SQL it corresponds to a varchar(255)).

Both fields id and self hold special significance in Python.

The current version of python-intercom allows fields called id e.g. user.id. I could add similar support for self e.g. user.self but it feels wrong.

Alternatives

I can only think of two semi-sensible alternatives:

  • rename to _id and _self – this doesn’t sit well either as they are not intended to be private
  • remove __getattribute__ and __setattr__ support and just use __getitem__ i.e. instead of user.id we use user['id'] and user['self']. This is clean but will break whatever code is out there using .id.

Right here, right now

I am going to add support for .self for initial release. Keeping to a familiar programming model is the most important thing right now.

Feedback

I’ve opened an issue on GitHub to track any feedback.