Coerce a scalar or sequence into an iterable

coerce_iterable.py

def coerce_iterable(scalar_or_sequence):
    """If scalar_or_sequence is not iterable, wrap it so that the return value is."""
    try:
        _ = tuple(x for x in scalar_or_sequence)
        result = scalar_or_sequence
    except TypeError:
        # The user has probably specified a single entity and forgotten to
        # define it as a proper tuple, so be friendly and handle as a scalar instance:
        result = (scalar_or_sequence,)
    return result