Newbie help - test for data type

[John Machin]

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.
>

Fantastic. If there are 0 checkboxes selected, does it return None?

The built-in function isinstance() will help.

if it is None:
    shouldbe = []
elif isinstance(it, str):
    shouldbe = [it]
elif isinstance(it, list):
    shouldbe = it
else:
    raise WTFError(repr(type(it))

Cheers,
John