check whether a value is scalar

[Roy Smith]

In article <1145738972.246620.317070 at i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
 "Eli" <eli.hen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I want to check whether a value is a scalar. A scalar can be:
> - None (null)
> - string
> - number (integer, float)
> - boolean
> How can I validate a value is one of these types?
> 
> I care about the value only, and not its class methods.
> An object is not a scalar, since it's not a simple value.
> An array might be considered as scalar.
> The issue is I want to keep a set of values to share among several
> applications in different languages, and only scalar values can be
> shared. Since objects are not the same in all languages, it's possible
> to share only simple values.
> 
> -thanks

I'm not sure what "scalar" means in this context.  You say "an object is 
not a scalar", but you also assert that an integer is a scalar.  These are 
contradictory statements, since integers *are* objects:

>>> isinstance (1, object)
True

You say that numbers are scalars.  All nunmbers, or just integers and 
floats?  What about complex numbers?  What about long integers?

In any case, the way to check for a type is with isinstance(), as I did 
above).