python - How to convert list of elements to their default types

Question

for eg I have the List:

old =  ['Savannah', '234Today', '4.5678', '23456','0.2342429']

How can I convert it to a list with elements with the default type

to:

new =  ['Savannah', '234Today', 4.5678, 23456,0.2342429]

The new list will have the elements with their default type be it float, int, long

Any help is Appreciated! Thank you

Answer 1

You can use ast.literal_eval and some exception handling:

>>> from ast import literal_eval
>>> lis = ['Savannah', '234Today', '4.5678', '23456','0.2342429']
def solve(x):
    try:
        return literal_eval(x)
    except (ValueError, SyntaxError):
        return x
...     
>>> map(solve, lis)
['Savannah', '234Today', 4.5678, 23456, 0.2342429]