How do I detect whether a Python variable is a function

Question

I have a variable, x, and I want to know whether it is pointing to a function or not.

I had hoped I could do something like:

>>> isinstance(x, function)

But that gives me:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
NameError: name 'function' is not defined

The reason I picked that is because

>>> type(x)
<type 'function'>

Answer 1

Hello @kartik,

You can import isfunction from the inspect module.

>>> from inspect import isfunction
>>> def f(): pass
>>> isfunction(f)
True
>>> isfunction(lambda x: x)
True