Convert strings of list to list of integers inside a list

Question

I have a list of strings and those strings are lists. Like this: [\'[1,2,3]\',\'[10,12,5]\'], for example. I want to get a list of lists or even every list there: <

Answer 1

You should use literal_eval to get actual list object from string.

>>> from ast import literal_eval
>>> data =  ['[1,2,3]','[10,12,5]']
>>> data = [literal_eval(each) for each in data]
>>> data
[[1, 2, 3], [10, 12, 5]]

literal_eval safely evaluates each object.

>>> help(literal_eval)
Help on function literal_eval in module ast:

literal_eval(node_or_string)
    Safely evaluate an expression node or a string containing a Python
    expression.  The string or node provided may only consist of the following
    Python literal structures: strings, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, booleans,
    and None.

You should always try to avoid using eval function. Read more here.