what best way check whether given object of given type? how checking whether object inherits given type?
let's have object o. how check whether it's str?
to check if type of o str:
type(o) str to check if o instance of str or subclass of str (this "canonical" way):
isinstance(o, str) the following works, , can useful in cases:
issubclass(type(o), str) type(o) in ([str] + str.__subclasses__()) see built-in functions in python library reference relevant information.
one more note: in case, may want use:
isinstance(o, basestring) because catch unicode strings (unicode not subclass of str; both str , unicode subclasses of basestring).
alternatively, isinstance accepts tuple of classes. return true if x instance of subclass of of (str, unicode):
isinstance(o, (str, unicode)) 