How can I create an object and add attributes to it?

The built-in object can be instantiated but can’t have any attributes set on it. (I wish it could, for this exact purpose.) It doesn’t have a __dict__ to hold the attributes.

I generally just do this:

class Object(object):
    pass

a = Object()
a.somefield = somevalue

When I can, I give the Object class a more meaningful name, depending on what kind of data I’m putting in it.

Some people do a different thing, where they use a sub-class of dict that allows attribute access to get at the keys. (d.key instead of d['key'])

Edit: For the addition to your question, using setattr is fine. You just can’t use setattr on object() instances.

params = ['attr1', 'attr2', 'attr3']
for p in params:
    setattr(obj.a, p, value)