Method to serialize the contents of data structures in Python

serializeFields.py

def serializeFields(data):
    try:
        it = iter(data)
    except TypeError as terr:
        return unicode(data)
    if type(it) == type(iter([])):
        l = []
        for e in it:
            l.append(serializeFields(e))
        return l
    elif type(it) == type(iter({})):
        d = {}
        for k in it:
            d[k] = serializeFields(data[k])
        return d
    # elif ... tuples? sets?                                                                                                                                          
    return unicode(data)