On Tue, Apr 7, 2020 at 2:42 AM Christopher Barker <pythonchb@gmail.com> wrote:
This all made me think *why* do I type check strings, and virtually nothing else? And it's because in most otehr places, if I want a given type, I can just try to make it from teh input:
x = float(x) i = int(i)
arr = np.asarray(np)
but:
st = str(st)
doesn't work because ANY object can be made into a string.
Not sure I understand your point here. Calling float() or int() will give you a float or int for many values that aren't floats or ints, just as calling str() will give you a string. The only real difference (as far as I can tell) is that, as you say, any object can be stringified. But all of those operations are potentially lossy - int(1.5) and float(1e100000) both throw away information - and they don't prove that something already was a string/int/float, just that it _now_ is. And to that end, str is no worse than the others. ChrisA