python: how to identify if a variable is an array or a scalar

Question

I have a function that takes the argument NBins. I want to make a call to this function with a scalar 50 or an array [0, 10, 20, 30].

Answer 1

Since the general guideline in Python is to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, I think the most pythonic way to detect a string/scalar from a sequence is to check if it contains an integer:

try:
    1 in a
    print('{} is a sequence'.format(a))
except TypeError:
    print('{} is a scalar or string'.format(a))