On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 18:07:47 GMT, "Andrew Koenig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"It's me" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> What's the best way to count number of items in a list? >> >> For instance, >> >> a=[[1,2,4],4,5,[2,3]] >> >> I want to know how many items are there in a (answer should be 7 - I don't >> want it to be 4) > >How about this? > > def totallen(x): > if isinstance(x, (list, tuple, dict)): > return sum(map(totallen, x)) > return 1 Since the requirement is to _count_, not flatten, ISTM your solution is best so far ;-) Regards, Bengt Richter -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
