How to extract string from python list?

Question

Assuming a python array "myarray" contains:

mylist = [u'a',u'b',u'c']

I would like a string that contains all of the elements in the array, while preserving the double quotes like this (notice how there are no brackets, but parenthesis instead):

result = "('a','b','c')"

I tried using ",".join(mylist), but it gives me the result of "a,b,c" and eliminated the single quotes.

Answer 1

Here is another variation:

mylist = [u'a',u'b',u'c']
result = "\"{0}\"".format(tuple(mylist))
print(result)

Output:

"('a', 'b', 'c')"    

Answer 2

What about repr()?

>>> repr(tuple(mylist))
"(u'a', u'b', u'c')"

More info on repr()

Answer 3

>>> l = [u'a', u'b', u'c']
>>> str(tuple([str(e) for e in l]))
"('a', 'b', 'c')"

Calling str on each element e of the list l will turn the Unicode string into a raw string. Next, calling tuple on the result of the list comprehension will replace the square brackets with parentheses. Finally, calling str on the result of that should return the list of elements with the single quotes enclosed in parentheses.

Answer 4

Try this:

result = "({})".format(",".join(["'{}'".format(char) for char in mylist]))

Answer 5

You were quite close, this is how I would've done it:

result = "('%s')" % "','".join(mylist)

Answer 6

What about this:

>>> mylist = [u'a',u'b',u'c']
>>> str(tuple(map(str, mylist)))
"('a', 'b', 'c')"