Convert string to list of lists

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I am trying to load a csv/excel file containing a list of lists in one of the columns. The column content is loaded as string as below example:

#this example is string

"[[['delivery_time', 'waiting_time'], ['short']], [['delivery'], ['fast']], [['delivery'], ['really'], ['great']]]"

I would like to get the following effect:

#this example is list

[[['delivery_time', 'waiting_time'], ['short']],
[['delivery'], ['fast']],
[['delivery'], ['really'], ['great']]]

Do you have a solution how to go from the first example to the second?

What I have tried:

I've tried literal_eval but it didn't help in this case.

x = ast.literal_eval(x)

I've tried some strip, split combinations but still no effect

x = [n.strip() for n in x]

Posted 14-Jun-23 1:05am

Patryk Kołakowski

Updated 14-Jun-23 2:36am

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Richard Deeming 14-Jun-23 7:58am

That almost looks like embedded JSON data - except JSON requires strings to be delimited with " instead of '.

From a brief Google, it looks like ast.literal_eval[^] should work. What output did you get when you tried it?

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Reverend Jim · Answer 1 · 2023-06-14T02:44:00

The easiest way to do it is the most risky. It involves dynamic execution and could result in the execution of rogue code so you would have to trust that your input strings are safe. Using your example of

Python

s = "[[['delivery_time', 'waiting_time'], ['short']], [['delivery'], ['fast']], [['delivery'], ['really'], ['great']]]"

you can convert it to a list by

Python

exec("lst = " + s)

to flatten that to a three element (in this example) you could do

Python

lst3 = []
for item in lst:
    lst3.append(item)

Patryk Kołakowski · Answer 2 · 2023-06-14T02:36:00

Solution 2

Little update here. Thank you for your response. I used ast.literal_eval(). Previously when I tried to use it I had a string without '' " so it failed. Stupid pitfalls :)

Posted 14-Jun-23 2:36am

Patryk Kołakowski

Convert string to list of lists

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