Get a list of numbers as input from the user

Question

I tried to use raw_input() to get a list of numbers, however with the code

numbers = raw_input()
print len(numbers)

the input

Answer 1

eval(a_string) evaluates a string as Python code. Obviously this is not particularly safe. You can get safer (more restricted) evaluation by using the literal_eval function from the ast module.

raw_input() is called that in Python 2.x because it gets raw, not "interpreted" input. input() interprets the input, i.e. is equivalent to eval(raw_input()).

In Python 3.x, input() does what raw_input() used to do, and you must evaluate the contents manually if that's what you want (i.e. eval(input())).