Question

>>> s = "'8255'"
>>> int(s)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: "'8255'"

Is there a handy function that will take regular string, or this kind of double string as in example, and produce integer.

Answer 1

>>> import ast
>>> s = "'8255'"
# note - this still works if it was '"8255"'
>>> ast.literal_eval(s)
'8255'
>>> int(ast.literal_eval(s))
8255

It also has the advantage that given something that’s already an int…

>>> s = '8255'
>>> type(ast.literal_eval(s))
<type 'int'>

You automatically get back an int…

see: http://docs.python.org/2/library/ast.html#ast.literal_eval