BUG: Fix RecursionError when apply native container types as a func

doc/source/whatsnew/v3.0.0.rst

@@ -884,6 +884,7 @@ Other
 - Bug in :func:`eval` with ``engine="numexpr"`` returning unexpected result for float division. (:issue:`59736`)
 - Bug in :func:`to_numeric` raising ``TypeError`` when ``arg`` is a :class:`Timedelta` or :class:`Timestamp` scalar. (:issue:`59944`)
 - Bug in :func:`unique` on :class:`Index` not always returning :class:`Index` (:issue:`57043`)
+- Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.apply` raising ``RecursionError`` when passing ``func=list[int]``. (:issue:`61565`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.apply` where passing ``engine="numba"`` ignored ``args`` passed to the applied function (:issue:`58712`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.eval` and :meth:`DataFrame.query` which caused an exception when using NumPy attributes via ``@`` notation, e.g., ``df.eval("@np.floor(a)")``. (:issue:`58041`)
 - Bug in :meth:`DataFrame.eval` and :meth:`DataFrame.query` which did not allow to use ``tan`` function. (:issue:`55091`)

pandas/_libs/lib.pyx

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ from collections import abc
 from decimal import Decimal
 from enum import Enum
 from sys import getsizeof
+from types import GenericAlias
 from typing import (
     Literal,
     _GenericAlias,
@@ -1298,7 +1299,7 @@ cdef bint c_is_list_like(object obj, bint allow_sets) except -1:
         getattr(obj, "__iter__", None) is not None and not isinstance(obj, type)
         # we do not count strings/unicode/bytes as list-like
         # exclude Generic types that have __iter__
-        and not isinstance(obj, (str, bytes, _GenericAlias))
+        and not isinstance(obj, (str, bytes, _GenericAlias, GenericAlias))
         # exclude zero-dimensional duck-arrays, effectively scalars
         and not (hasattr(obj, "ndim") and obj.ndim == 0)
         # exclude sets if allow_sets is False

pandas/tests/dtypes/test_inference.py

@@ -250,6 +250,15 @@ class MyDataFrame(DataFrame, Generic[T]): ...
     assert inference.is_list_like(tst)
 
 
+def test_is_list_like_native_container_types():
+    # GH 61565
+    # is_list_like was yielding false positives for native container types
+    assert not inference.is_list_like(list[int])
+    assert not inference.is_list_like(list[str])
+    assert not inference.is_list_like(tuple[int])
+    assert not inference.is_list_like(tuple[str])
+
+
 def test_is_sequence():
     is_seq = inference.is_sequence
     assert is_seq((1, 2))