why am I not seeing X number of duplicates when setAttr is added.

[jettam]

I am confused,  If I remove the part that says  mc.setAttr(dupObj+".translate",trX,trY,trZ,type="double3")    I will get 10 duplicates of my object. But if I add back in I only get 2 duplicates?   Could someone explain whats going on here. 

def makeStairs(number=10):
    import random    
   
    if number >= 1:
        masterGroup = mc.group(empty=True, name='MasterGroup')
        for x in range (10):
            step = mc.polyCube(name='TED_'+str((x)+1))
            mc.parent(step[0], masterGroup)
            print 'making step_' + str((x)+1)
        stepsAreReady = (1)
       
    if stepsAreReady == (1) :
        trX = random.uniform (-30,30)
        trY = random.uniform (-30,30)
        trZ = random.uniform (-30,30)
        # duplicate and position steps #
        for x in range (number):
            dupObj = mc.duplicate(masterGroup)
            mc.setAttr(dupObj+".translate",trX,trY,trZ,type="double3")
            print "duplicate and position steps"
           
    else:
        print 'Dont make stairs'




makeStairs(10)

[jettam]

Solved it! I need to define the transform node[0] to the variable called dupObj.   dupObj = mc.duplicate(masterGroup)[0]   Once that was done setAttr knew what it had to operate on.