Convert String to List of Dictionaries Python 3

Question

I have a piece of information like so:

[{"city": "Beverly Hills", "state": "", "postal_code": "", "address": "Some Address", "country": "USA"}, {"city": "New York", "state": "NY", "postal_code": "", "address": "P.O. BOX 52404", "country": "USA"}]

When I do type() it shows as <class 'str'>.

How do I get this information from a string to a list of dictionaries in Python 3?

I've tried literal_eval and got an error malformed node or string:, so I am not sure what the best way to do this is.'

EDIT

Here is an example that should be reproducible:

mydata = {'programs': '["France"]', 'ids': '[]', 'citizenships': '[]', 'nationalities': '["FR"]', 'places_of_birth': '[]', 'dates_of_birth': '["1973-03-25"]', 'addresses': '[{"state": null, "postal_code": null, "address": null, "city": null, "country": "FR"}]'}
for key,value in mydata.items():
    if type(value) is str:
        result = literal_eval(value)
        print("value 1: ", value)
        print("value type 2:", type(value))
        print("result 3: ", result)
        print("result  4: ", type(result))
        for item in result:
            print("item in result 5:", item)
            print("type of item in result 6:", type(item))

Here is the error:

File "server.py", line 137, in insert_in_db result = literal_eval(value)
File "/Users/user/anaconda3/envs/apicaller/lib/python3.5/ast.py", line 84, in literal_eval return _convert(node_or_string)
File "/Users/user/anaconda3/envs/apicaller/lib/python3.5/ast.py", line 57, in _convert return list(map(_convert, node.elts))
File "/Users/user/anaconda3/envs/apicaller/lib/python3.5/ast.py", line 62, in _convert in zip(node.keys, node.values))
File "/Users/user/anaconda3/envs/apicaller/lib/python3.5/ast.py", line 61, in return dict((_convert(k), _convert(v)) for k, v
File "/Users/user/anaconda3/envs/apicaller/lib/python3.5/ast.py", line 83, in _convert raise ValueError('malformed node or string: ' + repr(node)) ValueError: malformed node or string: <_ast.Name object at 0x109baae48>

Maybe I am missing a step in between to check for null values? I seem to get the error on the eval line 137. I got the idea to use ast.literal_eval from that stack overflow comment mentioned below.

Is it more of a data issue than with the way I am handling it? I am not very familiar with Python so I am most likely missing something.

Answer 1

import json

data = json.loads(<your_string>)