counting items

[Bengt Richter]

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:07:47 GMT, "Andrew Koenig" <ark at acm.org> wrote:

>"It's me" <itsme at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
>news:ukdFd.10645$5R.2000 at newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
>
>> What's the best way to count number of items in a list?
>>
>> For instance,
>>
>> a=[[1,2,4],4,5,[2,3]]
>>
>> I want to know how many items are there in a (answer should be 7 - I don't
>> want it to be 4)
>
>How about this?
>
>    def totallen(x):
>        if isinstance(x, (list, tuple, dict)):
>            return sum(map(totallen, x))
>        return 1

Since the requirement is to _count_, not flatten, ISTM your solution is best so far ;-)

Regards,
Bengt Richter