This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Object Identity and Type
The built-in function id() returns the identity of an object as an integer. This integer usually corresponds to the object’s location in memory, although this is specific to the Python implementation and no such interpretation of the identity should be made. The is operator compares the identity of two objects. The built-in function type() returns the type of an object. Here’s an example of different ways you might compare two objects:
# Compare two objects
def compare(a,b):
if a is b:
# a and b are the same object
statements
if a == b:
# a and b have the same value
statements
if type(a) is type(b):
# a and b have the same type
statements
The type of an object is itself an object known as the object’s class. This object is uniquely defined and is always the same for all instances of a given type. Therefore, the type can be compared using the is operator. All type objects are assigned names that can be used to perform type checking. Most of these names are built-ins, such as list, dict, and file. Here’s an example:
if type(s) is list:
s.append(item)
if type(d) is dict:
d.update(t)
Because types can be specialized by defining classes, a better way to check types is to use the built-in isinstance(object, type) function. Here’s an example:
if isinstance(s,list):
s.append(item)
if isinstance(d,dict):
d.update(t)
Because the isinstance() function is aware of inheritance, it is the preferred way to check the type of any Python object.
Although type checks can be added to a program, type checking is often not as useful as you might imagine. For one, excessive checking severely affects performance. Second, programs don’t always define objects that neatly fit into an inheritance hierarchy. For instance, if the purpose of the preceding isinstance(s,list) statement is to test whether s is “list-like,” it wouldn’t work with objects that had the same programming interface as a list but didn’t directly inherit from the built-in list type. Another option for adding type-checking to a program is to define abstract base classes. This is described in Chapter 7.