Use from_json to convert string to array. Explode to cascade each unique element to row.
data
df = spark.createDataFrame(
[(('{"todo":"[wakeup, shower]"}'),('{"todo":"[brush, eat]"}'),('{"todo":"[read, write]"}'),('{"todo":"[sleep, snooze]"}'))],
('value1','values2','value3','value4'))
code
new = (df.withColumn('todo', explode(flatten(array(*[map_values(from_json(x, "MAP<STRING,STRING>")) for x in df.columns])))) #From string to array to indivicual row
.withColumn('todo', translate('todo',"[]",'')#Remove corner brackets
) ).show(truncate=False)
outcome
+---------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------+--------------------------+--------------+
|value1 |values2 |value3 |value4 |todo |
+---------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------+--------------------------+--------------+
|{"todo":"[wakeup, shower]"}|{"todo":"[brush, eat]"}|{"todo":"[read, write]"}|{"todo":"[sleep, snooze]"}|wakeup, shower|
|{"todo":"[wakeup, shower]"}|{"todo":"[brush, eat]"}|{"todo":"[read, write]"}|{"todo":"[sleep, snooze]"}|brush, eat |
|{"todo":"[wakeup, shower]"}|{"todo":"[brush, eat]"}|{"todo":"[read, write]"}|{"todo":"[sleep, snooze]"}|read, write |
|{"todo":"[wakeup, shower]"}|{"todo":"[brush, eat]"}|{"todo":"[read, write]"}|{"todo":"[sleep, snooze]"}|sleep, snooze |
+---------------------------+-----------------------+------------------------+--------------------------+--------------+