How to find out if a Python object is a string?

Question

How can I check if a Python object is a string (either regular or Unicode)?

Answer 1

Python 2 and 3

(cross-compatible)

If you want to check with no regard for Python version (2.x vs 3.x), use six (PyPI) and its string_types attribute:

import six

if isinstance(obj, six.string_types):
    print('obj is a string!')

Within six (a very light-weight single-file module), it's simply doing this:

import sys
PY3 = sys.version_info[0] == 3

if PY3:
    string_types = str
else:
    string_types = basestring