String in to list Python

Question

I have a string, something like:

a = "[1, 2, 3]"

If there an easy way to convert it in to a list, without using .split(), join() etc.

Thanks for any replies.

Answer 1

use ast.literal_eval() it's safer than using eval

from ast import literal_eval

a = literal_eval("[1, 2, 3]")

print(a)