Python, let user define list variable

Question

Trying to enable a user to input a mixed list in the correct format, ie with square brackets and commas already separating values.

Using the input() function saves the entire input as a string.
Using list() around this, just makes every character of the string a separate part of the list.

I see for loops can be used and so can split function, but that won’t work with the kind of list I’m trying to input. I need the user to be able to define the list themselves. Is this even possible?

Essentially, user should be able to input e.g.
["d",3,18,"{ds}"]
and then my script runs the function using their defined list.

Am I just missing something or is there not a way to do this?

Asked By: poseidon

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Source

Answer 1

IIUC, you’re looking for ast.literal_eval :

from ast import literal_eval

pre_L = input("Enter a list, please: ")

L = literal_eval(pre_L)

Output :

print(L, type(L))

Enter a list, please:  ["d",3,18,"{ds}"]
['d', 3, 18, '{ds}'] <class 'list'>

Answered By: Timeless

Python, let user define list variable

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