Question

I’ve got a custom log function in Python and I’d like to have a Pythonic way to split the input in multiple lines. The input could be a string, a multi-line-string or a list.

This works well for strings and multi-line-strings, however it doesn’t handle lists:

def log( text, indent = 0):
    indent_level = 4
    current_time = str( datetime.datetime.now().time())[0:-3]
    for line in text.splitlines():
        log_line = current_time + ' | ' + indent_level * indent * ' ' + str( line)
        print( log_line)

What do you suggest to also be able to handle lists without complex

if( type( string) == list):

tests all over the place?

Answer 1

Use duck typing to normalize the input once, at the beginning of the method.

try:
    # Assume you get multiline text
    lines = text.splitlines()
except AttributeError:
    # If your assumption was wrong, then you should already have a list
    lines = text