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\"]
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Answer 1

If the you are truly interested in only strings, floats, and ints, I prefer the more verbose, less-evalful

def interpret_constant(c):
    try:
        if str(int(c)) == c: return int(c)
    except ValueError:
        pass
    try:
        if str(float(c)) == c: return float(c)
    except ValueError:
        return c

test_list = ["hello", "3", "3.64", "-1"]

typed_list = [interpret_constant(x) for x in test_list]
print typed_list
print [type(x) for x in typed_list]