python capitalize nested list with strings and integers

Question

I'm trying to capitalize the first letter for every word in this nested list, but I cannot seem to figure out how to make Python "ignore" the last elements 8 and 7 but still keep them in the list. (fyi, I have only had programming for about two weeks now, so it's all still quite new to me)

def capitalize_nested(names):
    if isinstance(names, list):
        return [capitalize_nested(s) for s in names]
    else:
        return names.capitalize()

capitalize_nested([['Loraine','Jessica'],'Philip',['Dave', 'Jones'], 8, 7])

Hope to get some kind of hint or the like thanks in advance

Answer 1

If you are allowed to alter the input, then you can do it in-place, while iterating over the list:

def capitalizeNested(L):
    for i,item in enumerate(L):
        if isinstance(item, list):
            L[i] = [it.title() for it in item]
        elif isinstance(item, str):
            L[i] = item.title()

Output:

In [54]: L = [['loraine','jessica'],'philip',['dave', 'jones'], 8, 7]

In [55]: capitalizeNested(L)

In [56]: L
Out[56]: [['Loraine', 'Jessica'], 'Philip', ['Dave', 'Jones'], 8, 7]