Michael Chermside wrote: > Shankar writes: > >>Is there any way to convert a string into an instruction that will be >>executed? > > > Short answer: > Yes. The exec statement does what you want: > > >>>>x = 3 >>>>y = 4 >>>>exec "z = x * y" >>>>print z > > 12 >
Ooh! I didn't know that one. I have to admit that it gives me an uneasy feeling. How woud the author of "z = x * y" know that z was safe to assign to? To Shankar: An intermediate is eval: z = eval("x * y") but even this is unsafe if you do not vet the input strings: String s = "system('format c: /y')" z = eval(s) Steve -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list