Convert an Array, converted to a String, back to an Array

Question

I recently found an interesting behaviour in python due to a bug in my code. Here's a simplified version of what happened:

a=[[1,2],[2,3],[3,4]]
print(str(a))

console:
"[[1,2],[2,3],[3,4]]"

Now I wondered if I could convert the String back to an Array.Is there a good way of converting a String, representing an Array with mixed datatypes( "[1,'Hello',['test','3'],True,2.532]") including integers,strings,booleans,floats and arrays back to an Array?

I hope you're aware the other question you found is for a completely different programming language, and the code in it wouldn't work at all in Python. — user2357112
– user2357112, Commented Jan 7, 2016 at 12:32
@ user2357112 Oh,thanks. Totally missed that. I'll remove the reference — frameworker
– frameworker, Commented Jan 7, 2016 at 12:52

Paul Rooney · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-07 12:44:01Z

21

There's always everybody's old favourite ast.literal_eval

>>> import ast
>>> x = "[1,'Hello',['test','3'],True,2.532]"
>>> y = ast.literal_eval(x)
>>> y
[1, 'Hello', ['test', '3'], True, 2.532]
>>> z = str(y)
>>> z
"[1, 'Hello', ['test', '3'], True, 2.532]"

answered Jan 7, 2016 at 12:44

Paul Rooney

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Comments

Rockybilly · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-07 12:49:12Z

4

ast.literal_eval is better. Just to mention, this is also a way.

a=[[1,2],[2,3],[3,4]]
string_list = str(a)
original_list = eval(string_list)
print original_list == a
# True

answered Jan 7, 2016 at 12:49

Rockybilly

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1 Comment

Rockybilly Over a year ago

I come from the future, there is no reason to use this in a situation like this.

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