Evaluating a list-like string into a string

Question

Say that I have a string that looks something like this:

    x = "['345565', '1234213', '12313523', '1232346345', '1223123']"

Is there a built-in method in Python or numpy that I can use to automatically convert this into a list? I'm familiar with the eval() method and what I'm looking for is something of the same idea.

At the moment, you don't have a string, you have a syntax error. Please make sure your example is a [example]. — Amadan, Feb 07 '20 at 00:28
You need to change the left and right single-quotes to double. Then use `eval`. As posted, this isn't legal Python. — Prune, Feb 07 '20 at 00:29
@Prune Please don't suggest `evil` when `ast.literal_eval` or `json.loads` can both handle it safely :) — Amadan, Feb 07 '20 at 00:30
Does this answer your question? [Convert string representation of list to list](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1894269/convert-string-representation-of-list-to-list) — AMC, Feb 07 '20 at 01:04

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 07 '20 at 00:29

3

Is it ok ?

import ast
x = "['345565', '1234213', '12313523', '1232346345', '1223123']"
print(ast.literal_eval(x))

answered Feb 07 '20 at 00:29

ErnestBidouille

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4
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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '20 at 00:42

You can use the python built in library ast. ast docs

>>> import ast
>>> x = "['345565', '1234213', '12313523', '1232346345', '1223123']"
>>> x_array = ast.literal_eval(x)
>>> print(x_array)
['345565', '1234213', '12313523', '1232346345', '1223123']
>>> type(x_array)
<class 'list'>
>>> x_array
['345565', '1234213', '12313523', '1232346345', '1223123']

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 07 '20 at 00:43

1

You can also use the json module, but you'll have to swop the single quotes for double quotes to make it legit json:

import json
x = "['345565', '1234213', '12313523', '1232346345', '1223123']"
json.loads(x.replace("'", '"'))

answered Feb 07 '20 at 00:43

Dewald Abrie

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9
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Evaluating a list-like string into a string

3 Answers3