How to Know if an Object is an Iterable in Python

Using hasattr

This is a straightforward way but can be a bit hard to read.

hasattr(item, "__iter__") # True / False

Using isinstance

I prefer this method as it’s more readable.

from collections.abc import Iterable

isinstance(item, Iterable) # True / False

Using try-except

This is another way, but it relies on exception handling. Unless there is a specific reason to use it, I wouldn’t choose it.

def is_iterable(item):
    try:
        iter(item)
        return True
    except TypeError:
        return False

References

• Python official documentation on Abstract Base Classes for Collections