convert a int to a list

[James Stroud]

Tim Chase wrote:
>> ****************************************************************
>> a = ['spam!', 1, ['Brie', 'Roquefort', 'Pol le Veq'], [1, 2, 3]]
>>
>>     As an exercise, write a loop that traverses the previous list and
>>     prints the length of each element. What happens if you send an
>>     integer to len? 
>> ****************************************************************
>>
>> for i in a:
>>     print len(a[i])
>>
>> will not do.
>> the list has str, int, list, list.
>> I am expecting the output to be 1, 1, 3, 3 which are the number of
>> elements of each element of a, someone might think the result should
>> be 4, 3, 3 which is len(a), len(a[2]), len(a[3]) but how can I do both
>> thoughts with a loop?
> 
> 
> Well, first off, you've got a strange indexing going on there:  a[i] 
> requires that the index be an integer.  You likely *mean*
> 
>     for thing in a:
>         print len(thing)
> 
> If so, you can just wrap it in a check:
> 
>     for thing in a:
>         if "__len__" in dir(thing):

I think the one and only one way to express this is

         if hasattr(thing, "__len__"):



-- 
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/