The syntax of Python has been designed to allow operators that work with multiple types. For instance, 1+1 evaluates into 2, and "a"+"b" evaluates into "ab". Similarly, one can write functions that deal with multiple types in a consistent manner, using if statements and type queries.

Here is a function that returns the last digit of an int, or the last item of a list.

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def last(thing):
  if type(thing) == int:
     x = str(thing)
     k = int(x[-1])
     return k
  elif type(thing) == list:
     return thing[-1]