String to list python conversion

Question

My input string looks like below

rule = "['xor',[{'asset':'pc','operator':'=','basis':true}]]"

Expected output

 Output = ['xor',[{'asset':'pc','operator':'=','basis':true}]]

Also this is legacy code where I cannot do ast.literal_eval(rule) since basis has non-string value true which will throw error 'malformed string'

Any suggestions to do the same?

I tried with rule.strip('][').split(', '), but the output is not the expected format:

["'and',[{'fact':'waived','operator':'=','basis':true}"]

• user2357112: What is true supposed to be?
• user2357112: Is this thing supposed to be some kind of wrongly-quoted JSON?
• Zaks: The true should ideally be a json but not be in legacy code ,have to handle that condition in the code
• Zaks: true should ideally have been passed as 'true' from UI to backend - which is not ought to be in legacy code
• Zaks: true is defined in JavaScript while it is True in Python hence the mismatch

Answer 1

If you're OK with using eval, then you can define true in the environment to eval:

>>> rule = "['xor',[{'asset':'pc','operator':'=','basis':true}]]"
>>> print(eval(rule, {'true': True}))
['xor', [{'basis': True, 'asset': 'pc', 'operator': '='}]]

• Amit Amola: I believe OP should accept this as the answer. I infact learned something new here today. That's a nice thing to share @thebjorn
• Zaks: @thebjron if the input is changed to ['xor',[{'asset':'pc','operator':'=','basis':true}]] I cant run eval on it . anyways to overcome that
• thebjorn: It's early Sunday morning here, but I don't see what the change is? If you mean that the ordering of keys in the dict is different, then you just need to upgrade to a Python version that preserves dict-key order (don't remember when that was changed off the top of my head...)

Answer 2

I think if you are not using tuples in those strings you could parse it as json.

import json
my_data = json.loads(my_string)

This will depend on the details of what you parsing though so buyer beware.

• gph: That seems like something that can pretty easily be corrected with replace()
• wjandrea: yep, rule.replace("'", '"')
• juanpa.arrivillaga: @gph no actually, in general, it can't. But it may suffice for the OP's purposes
• gph: which is why I said the solution will depend on the details.