Question

Given a list of python strings, how can I automatically convert them to their correct type?

Meaning, if I have:

["hello", "3", "3.64", "-1"]

I’d like this to be converted to the list

["hello", 3, 3.64, -1]  

where the first element is a string, the second an int, the third a float, and the fourth an int.

How can I do this?

Answer 1

import ast

L = ["hello", "3", "3.64", "-1"]

def tryeval(val):
  try:
    val = ast.literal_eval(val)
  except ValueError:
    pass
  return val

print [tryeval(x) for x in L]