Question

I have the following string which is a Python dictionary stringified:

some_string = '{123: False, 456: True, 789: False}'

How do I get the Python dictionary out of the above string?

Answer 1

Well, you can do

d = eval(some_string)

But if the string contains user input, it’s a bad idea because some random malicious function could be in the expression. See Safety of Python 'eval' For List Deserialization

So a safer alternative might be:

import ast
d = ast.literal_eval(some_string)

From http://docs.python.org/library/ast.html#ast.literal_eval :

The string or node provided may only consist of the following
Python literal structures: strings, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, booleans,
and None.