[Python-Dev] Need a way to test for 8-bit-or-unicode-string

[Tim Peters]

[Aahz]
> At least with the latter, you can do:
>
>     stringtype = (str, unicode)
>     isinstance(x, stringtype)
>
> Hmmmm...  Or can you?

Yes -- it's the value of the expression that counts, not how it's spelled.
You can even nest these tuples:

>>> int_types = int, long
>>> file_types = file,
>>> def fori(x):
...     return isinstance(x, (int_types, file_types))
...
>>> fori(43)
1
>>> fori(43L)
1
>>> import sys
>>> fori(sys.stdin)
1
>>> fori(43.0)
0
>>>