Check if input is a list/tuple of strings or a single string
Type checking:
def func(arg):
if not isinstance(arg, (list, tuple)):
arg = [arg]
# process
func('abc')
func(['abc', '123'])
Varargs:
def func(*arg):
# process
func('abc')
func('abc', '123')
func(*['abc', '123'])
You can check if a variable is a string or unicode string with
- Python 3:
isinstance(some_object, str)
- Python 2:
isinstance(some_object, basestring)
This will return True
for both strings and unicode strings
As you are using python 2.5, you could do something like this:
if isinstance(some_object, basestring):
...
elif all(isinstance(item, basestring) for item in some_object): # check iterable for stringness of all items. Will raise TypeError if some_object is not iterable
...
else:
raise TypeError # or something along that line
Stringness is probably not a word, but I hope you get the idea
isinstance
is an option:
In [2]: isinstance("a", str)
Out[2]: True
In [3]: isinstance([], str)
Out[3]: False
In [4]: isinstance([], list)
Out[4]: True
In [5]: isinstance("", list)
Out[5]: False