Single string vs list of strings

[Scott Sharkey]

Hi All,

I have a need to determine whether a passed variable is a single string,
or a list of strings. What is the most pythonic way to do this?

Thanks.
-Scott

 

[Joe Strout]

The question you might want to asked is whether the parameter
is a single string or a sequence of strings. That way your
code will also work with an iterator that returns strings.

True

I agree with the general approach, but this test will fail for Unicode
strings, and so is probably bad mojo moving forward. Instead I suggest:

isinstance(x, basestring)

which will work whether x='asdf' or x=u'asdf'.

Best,
- Joe

 

[greg]

Checking to see if something is a sequence of strings is a bit
trickier, since a string is actually a sequence of strings.

For that reason I'd just check whether it's a string,
and if it's anything else, assume it's a sequence of
strings. You'll find out soon enough if it doesn't
support indexing or iterating or whatever you want to
do with it.