Python | Check If A Given Object Is A List Or Not

Python | Check If A Given Object Is A List Or Not

Last Updated : 16 Apr, 2025

Given an object, the task is to check whether the object is a list or not. Python provides few simple methods to do this and in this article, we'll walk through the different ways to check if an object is a list:

Using isinstance()

isinstance() function checks if an object is an instance of a specific class or data type.

Python

if isinstance([1, 2, 3], list):
    print("Object is a list")
else:
    print("Object is not a list")

if isinstance("12345", list):
    print("Object is a list")
else:
    print("Object is not a list")

Output

Object is a list
Object is not a list

Explanation:isinstance(obj, list) returns True if obj is a and False if it's not.

Using type()

Another method to check if an object is a list is by using the type() function. This function returns the exact type of an object.

Python

l1 = [1, 2, 3]
l2 = (10, 20, 30)  # A tuple

if type(l1) is list:
    print("Object is a list")
else:
    print("Object is not a list")

if type(l2) is list:
    print("Object is a list")
else:
    print("Object is not a list")

Output

Object is a list
Object is not a list

Explanation:

type(obj) returns the exact type (e.g., list, tuple, dict).
Unlike isinstance(), it does not consider inheritance, useful when strict type matching is needed.

Using class Attribute

To check if an object is a list , we can use the __class__ attribute and compare it to the list type:

Python

l1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
l2 = (12, 22, 33)

if l1.__class__ == list:
    print("input is a list")
else:
    print("input is not a list")

if l2.__class__ == list:
    print("input is a list")
else:
    print("input is not a list")

Output

input is a list
input is not a list

Explanation:

__class__ returns the class of an object.
While it works, it’s less readable and not as commonly used as isinstance().

Python | Check If A Given Object Is A List Or Not

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