Question

The answer to a question on multiple-value elements in a config file (which exactly fits my needs) suggests to “unpack the string from the config”. I read the doc for unpacking arguments lists suggested in several places but I fail to understand how this relates to my problem.

I am sure this must be obvious: having a string str = "123,456", how can I transform it into the list [123,456] (the number of elements separated by a comma in the string may vary)

Thank you.

Answer 1

Do you want a list of strings or a list of ints?

If you just want a list of strings, it’s very simple:

my_list = my_string.split(',')

If you want to convert these to ints, you need:

my_list = map(int, my_string.split(','))

(Also, don’t use str as a variable name as it shadows the built-in str() function.)