Question

I have a list like p = [[[[[[[[1, 2, 3]]]]]]]], I want to get the count of the items in the list including empty lists, so for this list I should get 10. I am trying to enumerate the list like –

for idx, item in enumerate(p):
    count = count + idx

but I am not able to get the empty lists there. Please advice.

Answer 1

Shorter version of code below:

>>> def recur_len(l):
        return sum(1 + recur_len(item) if isinstance(item,list) else 1 for item in l)

>>> recur_len([[[[[[[[1, 2, 3]]]]]]]])
10

More detailed code

>>> def recur_len(l):
        count = 0
        for item in l:
            if isinstance(item,list):
                count += 1 + recur_len(item)
            else:
                count += 1
        return count

>>> recur_len([[[[[[[[1, 2, 3]]]]]]]])
10