What is the output of type([]) in Python 3?

The output of type([]) in Python 3 is <class 'list'>.

The expression [] creates an empty list, and the built-in type() function returns the object’s class. When that class object is displayed in Python 3’s interactive interpreter, its representation is <class 'list'>. The angle brackets and the word class are part of the representation; they are not a list value and should not be read as Python syntax for creating one.

A frequent source of confusion is Python 2, where the comparable expression was displayed as <type 'list'>. Python 3 changed the representation of built-in classes to use the class notation. The result is still a type object, so code can compare it with list or use isinstance(value, list) when checking values.

The word list alone is not the result of type([]); it is the name of the class. Likewise, array is a different concept and is not the built-in type of a list literal. Python lists are ordered, mutable containers that can hold values of different types, making them one of the language’s most commonly used data structures.