On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 8:18 AM, Tim Chase <python.l...@tim.thechases.com> wrote: > Wes James wrote: <snip>
> > Just to add to the list of solutions I've seen, letting the built-in csv > module do the heavy lifting: > > >>> s = "['a','b']" > >>> import csv > >>> no_brackets = s[1:-1] # s.strip(' \t[]') > >>> c = csv.reader([no_brackets], quotechar="'") > >>> c.next() > ['a', 'b'] > > This also gives you a bit of control regarding how escaping is done, and > other knobs & dials to twiddle if you need. Additionally, if you have more > than one string to process coming from an iterable source (such as a file), > you can just pass that iterator to csv.reader() instead of concocting a > one-element list. Thx, I think this will work for what I want. -wes -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list