Find index of nested item in python

Question

I\'ve been working with some relatively complex arrays such as:

array = [ \"1\", 2, [\"4\", \"5\", (\"a\", \"b\")], (\"c\", \"d\")]

and I was l

Answer 1

I'm a bit late to the party, but I spent several minutes on it so I feel like it ought to be posted anyway :)

def getindex(container, target, chain=None):
    if chain is None: chain = list()
    for idx, item in enumerate(container):
        if item == target:
            return chain + [idx]
        if isinstance(item, collections.Iterable) and not isinstance(item, str):
            # this should be ... not isinstance(item, basestring) in python2.x
            result = getindex(item, target, chain + [idx])
            if result:
                return result
    return None