Check for the type of arguments

Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Date	2013-08-17 05:34 -0700
Message-ID	<185a0a88-9515-43e6-ae65-73d86b0299e7@googlegroups.com> (permalink)
Subject	Check for the type of arguments
From	Fernando Saldanha <fsaldan1@gmail.com>

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I am new to Python, with some experience in Java, C++ and R.

Writing in other languages I usually check the type and values of function arguments. In the Python code examples I have seen this is rarely done. 

Questions:

1) Is this because it would be "unpythonic" or just because the examples are not really production code?

2) If I still want to check the type of my arguments, do I

a) use type() or is instance() to check for type?

b) use assert (I guess not), raise a ValueError, or sys.exit()? 

(I noticed that raising a ValueError does not stop execution when I am running the Interactive Interpreter under PTVS, which I find inconvenient, but it does stop execution when running the code non-interactively.)

Thanks.

FS

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Check for the type of arguments Fernando Saldanha <fsaldan1@gmail.com> - 2013-08-17 05:34 -0700
  Re: Check for the type of arguments Skip Montanaro <skip@pobox.com> - 2013-08-17 07:55 -0500
  Re: Check for the type of arguments Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2013-08-17 14:31 +0100
  Re: Check for the type of arguments Joshua Landau <joshua@landau.ws> - 2013-08-17 15:38 +0100
  Re: Check for the type of arguments Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2013-08-17 15:46 +0000
  Re: Check for the type of arguments Fernando Saldanha <fsaldan1@gmail.com> - 2013-08-17 09:00 -0700

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