safe_getattr(): Follow an object attribute dot-notation chain to find the leaf value. If any attribute doesn't exist or has no value, just return False.

safe_getattr.py

def safe_getattr(obj, attr_dot_chain, default=False):
    """
    Follow an object attribute dot-notation chain to find the leaf value.
    If any attribute doesn't exist or has no value, just return False.
    """
    attrs = attr_dot_chain.split('.')
    while attrs:
        try:
            obj = getattr(obj, attrs.pop(0))
        except AttributeError:
            return default
    return obj


if __name__ == "__main__":
    from datetime import datetime
    x = datetime.now()
    print safe_getattr(x, 'min')
    print safe_getattr(x, 'min.year')
    print safe_getattr(x, 'foo')
    print safe_getattr(x, 'min.bar')

Proposal, using functional methods:

def safe_getattr(obj, attr_dot_chain, default=False):
    try:
        return reduce(getattr, attr_dot_chain.split("."), obj)
    except AttributeError:
        return default