How to convert list of string to list of dictionary in Python

Question

i have list of items like this:

["{'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':4,'Critical Thinking':4}", "{'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':5,'Critical Thinking':4}"]

Each item is a dictionary string. How to convert list of string to list of dictionary out of this. I need a final result like this:

[{'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':4,'Critical Thinking':4}, {'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':5,'Critical Thinking':4}]

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 22 '17 at 06:25

3

Import ast and use literal_eval. That does the job.

import ast
lst = ["{'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':4,'Critical Thinking':4}", "{'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':5,'Critical Thinking':4}"]
res = [ast.literal_eval(x) for x in lst]
print(res)

answered Dec 22 '17 at 06:25

Banana

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Its converting but when i try to loop through the items in the list its saying its a type of string not dictionary. i have to cast it to dictionary? if so how would i do that? – Nikesh Kedlaya Dec 22 '17 at 06:48
Can you give a little code sample of what you do/want to do? which loop doesn't work? – Banana Dec 22 '17 at 06:49
If I print type(x) for x in res, then I get as answer. Which specs are you running? – Banana Dec 22 '17 at 06:51
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Sorry i ran a wrong code so got that error.. All good. Everything worked. Thank you – Nikesh Kedlaya Dec 22 '17 at 06:54

clemens · Answer 2 · 2017-12-22T06:26:04.757

0

You should use json.loadsfor this. Your strings use single quotes for encapsulating string. For JSON you have to replace them with double quotes.

import json
l = ["{'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':4,'Critical Thinking':4}", "{'Collaboration':5,'Communication':5,'Creativity':5,'Critical Thinking':4}"]
result = [json.loads(x.replace("'", '"')) for x in l]

edited Dec 22 '17 at 06:26

answered Dec 22 '17 at 06:22

clemens

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I am getting error `AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'read'` – Nikesh Kedlaya Dec 22 '17 at 06:25
If I paste the code to python it works for me. Can you give it a shot? – clemens Dec 22 '17 at 06:33

How to convert list of string to list of dictionary in Python

2 Answers2