Convert string to list

Is there an easy way to convert a string that contains a list to a list? For example, '[1,2,3]' would convert to [1,2,3].

/Fredrik

Ok, if I may ask why would you want to put a list within a string? Anyway you could use split to break the string apart..

>>> string = '[1,2,3]'
>>> string = string[1:-1].split(',')
>>> string
['1', '2', '3']
>>>

however, the entries within the list will be converted to strings.

If your looking to so somthing more advanced than this you could pass the string to eval, the return value should be the list contained within the string (My prefered way to do it).

>>> string = '[1,2,3]'
>>> list = eval(string)
>>> list
[1, 2, 3]
>>>

Hope this helps.

Have fun,
Mark.