one-element tuples

Sun Apr 10 23:19:59 EDT 2016

Thank you for trying to help, Martin. So:
On 04/10/2016 09:08 PM, Martin A. Brown wrote:
> #1: I would not choose eval() except when there is no other
> solution. If you don't need eval(), it may save you some
> headache in the future, as well, to find an alternate way.
> So, can we help you choose something other than eval()?
> What are you trying to do with that usage?

so, I do not quite control the format of the file I am trying to parse.
it has the format:
"str1","str2",....,"strN" => more stuff
 :
in some cases there is just one "str" which is what created me problem.
The first "str1" has special meaning and, at times, it can be alone.
The way I handle this is:
 parts = line.strip().split(" => ")
 tokens = eval(parts[0])
 if type(tokens) == str: #Handle case that there's only one token
 columns.add(tokens)
 rowTokenString = "__Empty__"
 rows.add(rowTokenString)
 value = parts[1][:2]
 addCell(table, rowTokenString, tokens, value)
 else:
 columns.add(tokens[0])
 rowTokenString = '"'+'","'.join(tokens[1:]) + '"'
 rows.add(rowTokenString)
 value = parts[1][:2]
 addCell(table, rowTokenString, tokens[0],value)
which admittedly is not very elegant. If you have suggestions on how to avoid the use
of eval() and still achieve the same, I would be delighted to hear them