What is the equivalent of Python's ast.literal_eval() in Julia?

Question

Is there anything in Julia which is equivalent to Python's literal_eval provided by the package ast (Abstract Syntax Tree)?

A summary of its (literal_eval) description:

This function only evaluates Python literal structures: strings, bytes, numbers, tuples, lists, dicts, sets, booleans, and None, and can be used for safely evaluating strings from untrusted sources without the need to parse the values oneself. It is not capable of evaluating arbitrarily complex expressions, for example involving operators or indexing.

user_1410922 · Answer

I know I'm late here, but Meta.parse does the job:

 julia> eval(Meta.parse("[1,2,3]"))
 3-element Array{Int64,1}:
  1
  2
  3

Specifically, Meta.parse turns your string into an Expr which eval then turns into a useable data structure. Definitely works in Julia 1.0. https://discourse.julialang.org/t/how-to-convert-a-string-into-an-expression/11160

What is the equivalent of Python's ast.literal_eval() in Julia?

2 Answers