>>> original = 42 >>> class FooProxy: ... def __getattr__(self, x): ... return getattr(original, x) ... >>> proxy = FooProxy() >>> pr

>>> original = 42 >>> class FooProxy: ... def __getattr__(self, x): ... return getattr(original, x) ... >>> proxy = FooProxy() >>> proxy 42 For anyone else who found this as confusing as I did ("wtf, how can proxy actually be 42?"), what's going on here is that it's calling `proxy.__repr__()` when it attempts to display `proxy`, which in turn calls `42.__repr__()`. (Similarly, `proxy + 1` calls `42.__add__(1)`.)