Python - Using string as condition in if statement

Question

I am trying to do this:

a = "1 or 0"
if (a): Print "true"

So I can use a string as the condition of an if statement. Is this possible?

Answer 1

It's possible, but don't do it:

a = '1 or 0'

if eval(a):
    print 'a is True'

eval() is hard to debug, offers no benefit here and is easily exploitable if you allow arbitrary user input (e.g. a = "__import__('os').system('rm -Rf /')").