The basic split/strip method wouldn't split '(a, b, "c,...", d)', which is why I chose not to use it.
The csv solution seems to work well, that helped me much here (thank you), but I am looking to see if I can get it solved with some regular expression. This is how far I've come so far, but it needs much work: re.compile('"*,"*').split(x[1:-1]) Thanks for your help, Sia On Nov 29, 3:24 pm, Bjoern Schliessmann <usenet- [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Siah wrote: > > I need to convert the string: '(a, b, "c", d, "e")' into the > > following list ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']. Much like a csv reader > > does. I usually use the split function, but this mini-monster > > wouldn't properly get split up due to those random quotations > > postgresql returns to me. > > I heavily suggest you to look at the docs -- those are very basic > functions. > > http://docs.python.org/lib/string-methods.html > > One solution might be: > > >>> results = [] > >>> for part in '(a, b, "c", d, "e")'.split(","): > > ... part = part.strip() > ... part = part.strip("(),\"") > ... part = part.strip() > ... results.append(part) > ...>>> print results > > ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'] > > > > Regards, > > Björn > > -- > BOFH excuse #285: > > Telecommunications is upgrading. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list