How can I extract a dict form from a string?

Question

I got a string, it's like:

"{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}"

I want to assign a variable to this string and make the variable a dict. It sounds easy, but I spend half hour and didn't figure it out. How to do it?

@thefourtheye, some result passed by other colleagues, this is a rather abstract form. — Zen, Jun 15 '14 at 08:31
@KarlKnechtel, It's writing in a file, every item has a stinged dict — Zen, Jun 15 '14 at 10:18

Morgoth · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-15T08:36:04.120

8

Use the ast.literal_eval() function as follows:

>>> import ast
>>> ast.literal_eval("{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}")
{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

You could use it in a programme as follows:

import ast
dictString = "{'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}";
dictFinal = ast.literal_eval(dictString)
print (dictFinal)

There is more help in the docs at this link

edited Jun 15 '14 at 08:36

answered Jun 15 '14 at 08:27

Morgoth

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probably better not using `dict` as a variable name. – Padraic Cunningham Jun 15 '14 at 08:34
ahh right, was just coding off the top of my head – Morgoth Jun 15 '14 at 08:35

How can I extract a dict form from a string?

1 Answers1