How to convert a string representation of a list without double quoted elements to an actual list?

Question

I have referred to many sources but most use json.loads() or ast.literal_eval() which doesn't work for my case:

x = '[(0.0, 58.099669), 56565, Raining]'

Intended output:

x = [(0.0, 58.099669), 56565, 'Raining']

Is there any workaround for this?

Answer 1

What about this:

class default_key(dict):
    def __missing__(self, key):
        return key

d = default_key()
x = '[(0.0, 58.099669), 56565, Raining]'

res = eval(x, d, {})
# res = [(0.0, 58.099669), 56565, 'Raining']

Explanation: eval normally uses the globals() and locals() dict. However if you don't provide locals() and replace globals() with a dict that returns the name of a key when a lookup is done (and the key isn't found), then every 'variable' name in the given list will be converted to a string when eval is called.

This could still be unsafe however. See this.