check if var is dict

[Lawrence Oluyede]

Astan Chee <stanc at al.com.au> wrote:
> I have a variable, I want to check if it is a dictionary or a string.
> Is there any better way to do this than I've done. How I did it is by
> doing a .items() and catching a AttributeError that it raises if its not
> a dictionary.
> How do i properly do it?

One way is:

In [6]: isinstance(d, dict)
Out[6]: True

In [7]: isinstance("ciao", basestring)
Out[7]: True

This way you won't catch custom classes implementing dict or basestring
"protocols". In order to do that you can check if it implements the
right methods or treat the object as a dict or a string. It depends on
what you're trying to achieve.

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Lawrence, oluyede.org - neropercaso.it
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