Question

I’m given data that could be either a string or an array. I need to do different operations depending on which one it is, so my question is, how can I tell if an object is an array or a string in Python?

conn = boto.connect_sdb(AWSKey, AWSSecret)
item = conn.get_domain(dName).get_item(imagekey)
tags = item['tag']

tags == array or string?

Answer 1

If by “array” you mean list, then this should suffice:

if isinstance(data, list):
    # [...]
if isinstance(data, str):
    # "..."

If you mean array.array instead of a list:

if isinstance(data, array.array):
    # ...