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detecting variable types

Grant Edwards grante at visi.com
Wed Sep 22 16:58:16 EDT 2004 
On 2004-09-22, Andrew Koenig <ark at acm.org> wrote:
> "Jay" <wjjeonk at hotmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:ciskpq$7f2$1 at news-int.gatech.edu...
>
>> Here's what I'm trying to do:
>>
>> I have a function like this:
>>
>> def func(**params):
>>
>>    # if params[key1] is a single string
>>        # do something with params[key1]
>>
>>    # if params[key1] is a list of strings
>>        for val in params[key1]:
>>            # do something
>>
>> Could you suggest a better way to do this without detecting the type?
>
> I don't see anything particularly wrong with detecting the type this way:
>
>     if isinstance(params[key1], list):
>         for val in params[key1]:
>             # do something
>     else:
>         # do something with params[key1]
>
> Of course that won't work for other kinds of sequences, but if that's what 
> you want, then that's what you want.

When I write functions that accept either a list or a single
object, I usually "normalize" the paramter into a list and then
the rest of the function just operates on lists:

  if not isinstance(myParameter,list):
    myParameter = [myParameter]
 
  [...]    
    
  for p in myParameter:
    <do whatever>

  [...]    

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Is this where people
                                  at               are HOT and NICE and they
                               visi.com            give you TOAST for FREE??
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