CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.7
Hailey Monette
Hailey Monette

Reputation: 97

How to turn a 'string list' into a real list?

I am opening a .txt file and have to use a list inside of it for a function I am writing. This is one of the lists given in the text file:

'[24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]\n'

Using .strip() it gets rid of the \n, so it becomes:

'[24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]'

I think using split would be useless, because using split(' ') would yield:

['[24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]']

Which I think just deepens the complications. What is an effective way to turn this 'string list' into a real list I could use a for loop with? I've been trying for a few hours already, and can't figure it out.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 202

Answers (4)

fenmarel
fenmarel

Reputation: 363

you don't need to go importing anything for this

s = '[24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]'

s.translate(None, '[]').split(', ') will give you a list of numbers that are strings

if you want a list of ints try

[int(i) for i in s.translate(None, '[]').split(', ')]

Upvotes: 0

MikeHunter
MikeHunter

Reputation: 4304

An answer has already been accepted, but I just wanted to add this for the record. The json module is really good for this kind of thing:

import json
s = '[24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]\n'
lst = json.loads(s)

Upvotes: 3

Ashwini Chaudhary
Ashwini Chaudhary

Reputation: 251041

You can use ast.literal_eval:

In [8]: strs='[24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]\n'

In [9]: from ast import literal_eval

In [10]: literal_eval(strs)
Out[10]: [24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]

help on ast.literal_eval:

In [11]: literal_eval?
Type:       function
String Form:<function literal_eval at 0xb6eaf6bc>
File:       /usr/lib/python2.7/ast.py
Definition: literal_eval(node_or_string)
Docstring:
Safely evaluate an expression node or a string containing a Python
expression.  The string or node provided may only consist of the following
Python literal structures: strings, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, booleans,
and None.

Upvotes: 2

hd1
hd1

Reputation: 34677

Use ast.literal_eval:

strs='[24, 72, 95, 100, 59, 80, 87]\n'
list_of_strs = ast.literal_eval(strs)

Further help, leave a comment....

Upvotes: 0

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