Malformed String ValueError ast.literal_eval() with String representation of Tuple

Question

I\'m trying to read in a string representation of a Tuple from a file, and add the tuple to a list. Here\'s the relevant code.

raw_data = userfile.read().spl         


        

Answer 1

I know this is an old question, but I think found a very simple answer, in case anybody needs it.

If you put string quotes inside your string ("'hello'"), ast_literaleval() will understand it perfectly.

You can use a simple function:

    def doubleStringify(a):
        b = "\'" + a + "\'"
        return b

Or probably more suitable for this example:

    def perfectEval(anonstring):
        try:
            ev = ast.literal_eval(anonstring)
            return ev
        except ValueError:
            corrected = "\'" + anonstring + "\'"
            ev = ast.literal_eval(corrected)
            return ev