Question

In Python, I want to convert a list of strings:

l = ['sam','1','dad','21']

and convert the integers to integer types like this:

t = ['sam',1,'dad',21]

I tried:

t = [map(int, x) for x in l]

but is showing an error.

How could I convert all intable strings in a list to int, leaving other elements as strings?

My list might be multi-dimensional. A method which works for a generic list would be preferable:

l=[['aa','2'],['bb','3']]

Answer 1

I’d use a custom function:

def try_int(x):
    try:
        return int(x)
    except ValueError:
        return x

Example:

>>> [try_int(x) for x in  ['sam', '1', 'dad', '21']]
['sam', 1, 'dad', 21]

---

Edit: If you need to apply the above to a list of lists, why didn’t you converted those strings to int while building the nested list?

Anyway, if you need to, it’s just a matter of choice on how to iterate over such nested list and apply the method above.

One way for doing that, might be:

>>> list_of_lists = [['aa', '2'], ['bb', '3']]
>>> [[try_int(x) for x in lst] for lst in list_of_lists]
[['aa', 2], ['bb', 3]]

You can obviusly reassign that to list_of_lists:

>>> list_of_lists = [[try_int(x) for x in lst] for lst in list_of_lists]