String to List of words

Question

I have a string a = '["Internet Software","IoT"]'. It is not a list. It is a string of length 27.

I want to convert this into a list containing elements : Internet Software and IoT.

How do I do so?

Did you research this at all? https://stackoverflow.com/q/1894269/3001761 — jonrsharpe, Sep 02 '17 at 15:02

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 02 '17 at 15:00

0

a = '["Internet Software","IoT"]'
lst = eval(a)
print type(lst)
# <type 'list'>

answered Sep 02 '17 at 15:00

Ghilas BELHADJ

2

Noo... never use `eval(..)`... – Willem Van Onsem Sep 02 '17 at 15:01
it seems that his string contains a valid python code, so `eval()` should do the thing. but I agree with @WillemVanOnsem to not use it on unverified strings. – Ghilas BELHADJ Sep 02 '17 at 15:04
2

Ever heard of `ast.literal_eval`? It is a safe `eval` in the sense that it only works for literals, so it will not execute arbitrary code. – Willem Van Onsem Sep 02 '17 at 15:05

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 02 '17 at 15:02

You have at least 2 options: eval and json.loads

import json

a = '["Internet Software","IoT"]'
print(eval(a)) # ['Internet Software', 'IoT']
print(json.loads(a)) # ['Internet Software', 'IoT']

I would recommend against eval, because it could execute malicious code.

json.loads on the other hand only works if your string is valid JSON (which is true for the string you posted).

2 Answers2