Convert a list of strings to a list of tuples in python

Question

I have a list of strings in this format:

[\'5,6,7\', \'8,9,10\']

I would like to convert this into the format:

[(5,6,7), (8         


        

Answer 1

The following solution is for me the most readable, perhaps it is for others too:

a = ['5,6,7', '8,9,10']          # Original list
b = [eval(elem) for elem in a]   # Desired list

print(b)

Returns:

[(5, 6, 7), (8, 9, 10)]

The key point here being the builtin eval() function, which turns each string into a tuple. Note though, that this only works if the strings contain numbers, but will fail if given letters as input:

eval('dog')

NameError: name 'dog' is not defined