How to know if object is of str or list or dict or int?

Question

I have a list of lists and then I'm extracting the last element from the list. Now, how to know whether it's of type str or list or dict or int?

list2 = response_list[0][-1]
print list2,type(list2)  
print "not executing"
print list2

I have failed to match if that element is list or str by the following code:

    list2 = response_list[0][-1]
    if type(list2) == str() :
        print list2,type(list2)
    elif type(list2) == list() :
        print list2,type(list2)

Answer 1

Since Python 2.2, you should use this code:

if isinstance(list2, (str, list, dict)):

isinstance() takes a tuple as second argument and returns true if the type is in the tuple.

Answer 2

Actually the type function works as

>>> a = []
>>> type(a)
<type 'list'>
>>> f = ()
>>> type(f)
<type 'tuple'>

For comparision you can use isinstance() function which returns True/False

    list2 = response_list[0][-1]
    if isinstance(list2,str):
        print list2,type(list2)
    elif isinstance(list2,list):
        print list2,type(list2)