Determine the type of an object?

Question

Is there a simple way to determine if a variable is a list, dictionary, or something else? I am getting an object back that may be either type and I need to be able to tell

Answer 1

be careful using isinstance

isinstance(True, bool)
True
>>> isinstance(True, int)
True

but type

type(True) == bool
True
>>> type(True) == int
False