How to turn a string into a list in python?

Question

l = "['Hello', 'my', 'name', 'is', 'Apple']"
l1 = ['Hello', 'my', 'name', 'is', 'Apple']

type(l) returns str but I want it to be a list, as l1 is.

How can I transform that string into a common list?

mhlester · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-04 17:36:00Z

15

the ast module has a literal_eval that does what you want

import ast
l = "['Hello', 'my', 'name', 'is', 'Apple']"
l1 = ast.literal_eval(l)

Outputs:

['Hello', 'my', 'name', 'is', 'Apple']

answered Feb 4, 2014 at 17:24

mhlester

23.3k10 gold badges55 silver badges76 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

2 Comments

Nice to see the first answer to this question being literal_eval, not the regular dangerous eval.

@sweeneyrod they should just rename eval to evil

Dane White · Accepted Answer · 2014-02-04 18:50:34Z

0

ast.literal_eval is a nice approach. For those preferint string manipulation, another option is:

l1 = [x[1:-1] for x in l[1:-1].split(', ')]

answered Feb 4, 2014 at 18:50

Dane White

3,58220 silver badges16 bronze badges