Convert a String representation of a Dictionary to

Question

How can I convert the str representation of a dict, such as the following string, into a dict?

s = "{'muffin' : 'lolz', 'foo' : 'kitty'}"

I prefer not to use eval. What else can I use?

The main reason for this, is one of my coworkers classes he wrote, converts all input into strings. I'm not in the mood to go and modify his classes, to deal with this issue.

Answer 1

Starting in Python 2.6 you can use the built-in ast.literal_eval:

>>> import ast
>>> ast.literal_eval("{'muffin' : 'lolz', 'foo' : 'kitty'}")
{'muffin': 'lolz', 'foo': 'kitty'}

This is safer than using eval. As its own docs say:

>>> help(ast.literal_eval)
Help on function literal_eval in module ast:

literal_eval(node_or_string)
    Safely evaluate an expression node or a string containing a Python
    expression.  The string or node provided may only consist of the following
    Python literal structures: strings, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, booleans,
    and None.

For example:

>>> eval("shutil.rmtree('mongo')")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/opt/Python-2.6.1/lib/python2.6/shutil.py", line 208, in rmtree
    onerror(os.listdir, path, sys.exc_info())
  File "/opt/Python-2.6.1/lib/python2.6/shutil.py", line 206, in rmtree
    names = os.listdir(path)
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'mongo'
>>> ast.literal_eval("shutil.rmtree('mongo')")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/opt/Python-2.6.1/lib/python2.6/ast.py", line 68, in literal_eval
    return _convert(node_or_string)
  File "/opt/Python-2.6.1/lib/python2.6/ast.py", line 67, in _convert
    raise ValueError('malformed string')
ValueError: malformed string

Answer 2

If the string can always be trusted, you could use eval (or use literal_eval as suggested; it's safe no matter what the string is.) Otherwise you need a parser. A JSON parser (such as simplejson) would work if he only ever stores content that fits with the JSON scheme.

Answer 3

If you can't use Python 2.6, you can use a simple safeeval implmenentation like http://code.activestate.com/recipes/364469/

It piggybacks on the Python compiler so you don't have to do all the gross work yourself.

Answer 4

string = "{'server1':'value','server2':'value'}"

#Now removing { and }
s = string.replace("{" ,"")
finalstring = s.replace("}" , "")

#Splitting the string based on , we get key value pairs
list = finalstring.split(",")

dictionary ={}
for i in list:
    #Get Key Value pairs separately to store in dictionary
    keyvalue = i.split(":")

    #Replacing the single quotes in the leading.
    m= keyvalue[0].strip('\'')
    m = m.replace("\"", "")
    dictionary[m] = keyvalue[1].strip('"\'')

print dictionary

Answer 5

using json.loads:

>>> import json
>>> h = '{"foo":"bar", "foo2":"bar2"}'
>>> type(h)
<type 'str'>
>>> d = json.loads(h)
>>> d
{u'foo': u'bar', u'foo2': u'bar2'}
>>> type(d)
<type 'dict'>

Answer 6

To OP's example:

s = "{'muffin' : 'lolz', 'foo' : 'kitty'}"

We can use Yaml to deal with this kind of non-standard json in string:

>>> import yaml
>>> s = "{'muffin' : 'lolz', 'foo' : 'kitty'}"
>>> s
"{'muffin' : 'lolz', 'foo' : 'kitty'}"
>>> yaml.load(s)
{'muffin': 'lolz', 'foo': 'kitty'}