Check if variable is an instance of a File object

[Fuzzyman]

sc_wizard29 at hotmail.com wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Maybe these questions will sound strange to you, but I sometime have a
> hard time switching from Java to Python ;-)
>
> Let's say I have a function like this :
>
> def show_lines(file):
> 	for next_line in file:
> 		...
>
> What can I do to be sure that the input argument is indeed a 'File'
> object ?
>
> #1 : should I start by checking that 'file' is indeed an instance of a
> File object ? (and how do I do this ?)
> #2 : should I do nothing ? (but I don't like the idea of risking to
> have a runtime exception raised somewhere)
>

It depends how you want to do your exception handling. Assuming you
have passed in an object that isn't a file, how do you want to handle
it ?

Here is an example :

class ProgrammerError(Exception): pass

def function(myFile):
    if not isinstance(myFile, file):
        raise ProgrammerError
    for line in myFile:
        print myFile

try:
    function('something')
except ProgrammerError:
    print 'I did something wrong'

Writing tests that check your code doesn't do this would be a better
approach. This is 'strong testing' as opposed to 'strong typing'.

Fuzzyman
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/index.shtml

> Thanks for helping...