Distributing a String over a tuple

Question

So I am trying to distribute a String over a tuple. For example:

x = ["a", ("b", ("c", "d"))]

Then after I would like to have

x = ["a", ("bc", "bd")]

And then finally:

x = ["abc", "abd"]  

However the tuple does not always have to be the second element: For example:

x = [(("c", "d"), "b"), "a"]

Would simplify to:

x = [("cb", "db"), "a"]

And finally:

x = ["cba", "dba"]

I am wondering how I would go about writing a single function to simplify the first expression directly to the last.

What i've tried so far is:

def distribute(x):
    if isinstance(x, list) and any([True if isinstance(o, tuple) else False for o in x]):
        if isinstance(x[0], tuple):
            return (x[0][0] + x[1], x[0][1] + x[1])
        else:
            return (x[0] + x[1][0], x[0] + x[1][1])

print (distribute(["a", ("b", "c")]))

Final Edit: Editted Oscars code to work for my second example:

def dist(tpl):
    if not isinstance(tpl[1], tuple) and not isinstance(tpl[0], tuple):
        return tpl
    if isinstance(tpl[1], tuple):
        ret = dist(tpl[1])
        return [tpl[0] + ret[0], tpl[0] + ret[1]]
    elif isinstance(tpl[0], tuple):
        ret = dist(tpl[0])
        return [ret[0] + tpl[1], ret[1] + tpl[1]]

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

Try this, it's a recursive solution that works for both examples in the question, under the assumption that both elements in a tuple are never going to be tuples at the same time.

def dist(tpl):
    if not isinstance(tpl[0], tuple) and not isinstance(tpl[1], tuple):
        return tpl
    elif isinstance(tpl[0], tuple):
        ret = dist(tpl[0])
        return [ret[0] + tpl[1], ret[1] + tpl[1]]
    else:
        ret = dist(tpl[1])
        return [tpl[0] + ret[0], tpl[0] + ret[1]]

It works as expected:

dist(["a", ("b", ("c", "d"))])
=> ['abc', 'abd']

dist([(("c", "d"), "b"), "a"])
=> ['cba', 'dba']