Newbie - Recursive calls in class objects...

[Eric]

Hi all,

To summarize: How do I test if a "__dict__" item is a class object or an
instance variable?

I am trying to do something like pickling where I recursively call an
object's method that prints out the object's instance variables.  I am
looping thru the object's instance variables, printing each one.  I do this
with the line:
for t in self.__dict__.items():  (See listing below)
I get into trouble if one of the instance variables ( t[0] )  is itself an
object to be printed.  I can't seem to figure out how to test if the
variable is an object.
I've tried "isinstance(t[0], CElement)" which didn't work.
I've tried "issubclass(t[0], CElement)" which didn't work, either.

Thanks for your help!
Eric.


Here are my classes:

class CElement:
    """Base Class for elements in a project"""
    pad = "  "
    def __init__(self):
        self.Name = ""
        self.Type = ""
        self.PadMult = 1                # equals the number of parent nodes
this object will have in the XML structure
        self.XmlTag = self.Type     # the node text used to mark the XML
node (i.e., 'User' => <User></User>)

    def toXML(self):
        strXML=""
        strXML = self.pad * self.PadMult + "<" + self.XmlTag + ">\n"
        for t in self.__dict__.items():
******     NEED HELP HERE   ******
            strXML = strXML + self.pad * (self.PadMult + 1) + "<" + t[0] +
">" + t[1] + "</" + t[0] + ">\n"
            strXML=strXML + self.pad * self.PadMult + "</" + self.XmlTag +
">\n"
        print strXML

class CUser(CElement):
    """Defines Users"""
    def __init__(self):
        CElement.__init__(self)
        self.Name = "New User"
        self.Type = "User"
        self.Address = ""
        self.City = ""
        self.State = "CA"
        self.Zip = ""
        self.PadMult = 1

class CProject(CElement):
    """Defines a project"""
    def __init__(self):
        CElement.__init__(self)
        self.Name = "New Project"
        self.Type = "Project"
        self.XmlTag = self.Type
        self.User = CUser()
        self.PadMult = 1