Newbie help - test for data type

[Dennis Benzinger]

Jonathan Bowlas wrote:
> Hi Listers,
> 
> I have a requirement to test for a data type could someone tell me if this
> is possible in python?
> 
> Basically I have a ZPT in Zope that users can select checkboxes in a form
> which pass arguments for a python function, however if there is only one
> checkbox selected it is passed as a string whereas more than one checkbox is
> passed as a list. Therefore if my function is required to perform an action
> based on each argument passed in the list the function works correctly but
> if it is passed as a string nothing happens.

You need the isinstance() function. For example you can use
isinstance(selecteddeptcodes, list) to test if your variable is a list. 
If you want to test the other way round use 
isinstance(selecteddeptcodes, str) if your variable is a string, 
isinstance(selecteddeptcodes, unicode) if it's a unicode string or 
isinstance(selecteddeptcodes, basestring) to test if it's a string or 
unicode string. Read more about this function and the types to test for 
in http://docs.python.org/lib/built-in-funcs.html.

If you already have the code for a list argument I'd check if it's not a 
list and then turn it into a list:


if not isintance(selecteddeptcodes, list):
     selecteddeptcodes = [selecteddeptcodes]



Bye,
Dennis