How can I remove the quote marks and retrieve the list in python?

Question

I have a list as a string like this:

"['USA', 'Canada', 'Mexico', 'Brazil']"

I want to retrieve the list from the string, like this:

['USA', 'Canada', 'Mexico', 'Brazil']

How can I do that? Itertools or list function have not given me the proper result. Thanks

actually `"["USA", "Canada", "Mexico", "Brazil"]"` is not a python string. I think you're trying to say that your string is `'["USA", "Canada", "Mexico", "Brazil"]'` with double `'`. — Chiheb Nexus, Jul 26 '17 at 06:11
@ChihebNexus I know what is your mean. BUT, if there has a file `data.log`, which content is `"["USA", "Canada", "Mexico", "Brazil"]"`. How to deal with it? — CHENJIAN, Jul 26 '17 at 06:29
@CHENJIAN In that case you need to parse your data and replace the external `"` by `'` otherwise you'll have a not valid python strings. One way to do it is using `regex`. — Chiheb Nexus, Jul 26 '17 at 06:31
@ChihebNexus One more step than this question. I get it and thanks. — CHENJIAN, Jul 26 '17 at 06:35

Mohamed Ali JAMAOUI · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-26T06:15:42.803

4

you can evaluate the string to a list using eval:

 eval('["USA", "Canada", "Mexico", "Brazil"]')

Executing this on python shell, gives a list:

>>> eval('["USA", "Canada", "Mexico", "Brazil"]')
['USA', 'Canada', 'Mexico', 'Brazil']
>>>

edited Jul 26 '17 at 06:15

answered Jul 26 '17 at 06:12

Thanks a lot. I am such a noob. I completely forgot about eval and was panicking. Thanks again. – Jul 26 '17 at 06:14
@0x1, You are welcome. If this answer your question, could you please accept the answer? – Mohamed Ali JAMAOUI Jul 26 '17 at 06:17
1

@ChihebNexus, having to evalute is bad by design. It's absolutely not recommended to design a software that works this way. But, I don't have all the context of the software so I gave a quick n dirty answer. – Mohamed Ali JAMAOUI Jul 26 '17 at 06:24
@MedAli Yes. Otherwise, your answer is correct for this question :-) – Chiheb Nexus Jul 26 '17 at 06:27

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 26 '17 at 06:13

2

You can use literal_eval from ast module like this example:

from ast import literal_eval as le
data = le('["USA", "Canada", "Mexico", "Brazil"]')
print(data)

Output:

['USA', 'Canada', 'Mexico', 'Brazil']

Also, don't use eval(), use literal_eval() instead. See this answer for more details.

answered Jul 26 '17 at 06:13

Chiheb Nexus

2 Answers2