converting python list of strings to their type

Question

given a list of python strings, how can I automatically convert them to their correct type? Meaning, if I have:

[\"hello\", \"3\", \"3.64\", \"-1\"]
<         


        

Answer 1

I accomplished the same using json.loads method

def f(l):
    for i in l:
        try:
            yield json.loads(i)
        except:
            yield i

Test:

In [40]: l
Out[40]: ['hello', '3', '3.64', '-1']

In [41]: list(f(l))
Out[41]: ['hello', 3, 3.64, -1]