python - Simple way to convert a string to a dictionary

Question

What is the simplest way to convert a string of keyword=values to a dictionary, for example the following string:

name="John Smith", age=34, height=173.2, location="US", avatar=":,=)"

to the following python dictionary:

{'name':'John Smith', 'age':34, 'height':173.2, 'location':'US', 'avatar':':,=)'}

The 'avatar' key is just to show that the strings can contain = and , so a simple 'split' won't do. Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

This works for me:

# get all the items
matches = re.findall(r'w+=".+?"', s) + re.findall(r'w+=[d.]+',s)

# partition each match at '='
matches = [m.group().split('=', 1) for m in matches]

# use results to make a dict
d = dict(matches)