Indentifying types?

[Chris Rebert]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Mike Driscoll <kyosohma at gmail.com> wrote:
> - Show quoted text -
> On Mar 3, 10:57 am, Oltmans <rolf.oltm... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm reading from a file that contains text like
>>
>> ----
>> 5
>> google_company
>> apple_fruit
>> pencil_object
>> 4
>> test_one
>> tst_two
>> ----
>>
>> When I read the integer 5 I want to make sure it's an integer.
>> Likewise, for strings, I want to make sure if something is indeed a
>> string. So how do I check types in Python? I want to check following
>> types
>>
>> 1- integers
>> 2- strings
>> 3- testing types of a particular class
>> 4- decimal/floats
>>
>> Please excuse my ignorance & enlighten me. I will really appreciate
>> any help.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Oltmans
>
> I think when you're reading from a file, it will just read each line
> as a string. So you'd probably need to either try casting the line
> into something else and catch it in an exception handler or use eval.
>
> The normal way to check types is to use the keyword isinstance or just
> use the "type" keyword.

isinstance() and type() are callables, *not* keywords; and IMHO,
type() should never be used for typechecking (ironically), since such
checks are always written more clearly using isinstance().

Cheers,
Chris

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