Reading a list stored in a text file [duplicate]

Answer 1

You can use ast.literal_eval():

import ast

with open('filename.txt', 'r') as f:
    mylist = ast.literal_eval(f.read())

Answer 2

1. rename the file from i.e. foo.txt to foo.py
2. add my_list = in front of that line
3. in your code: import foo; l = foo.my_list

Simpler, no? ;-)