typecasting: a string object to a dictionary object

[dont bother]

Here am I,
On the border...if someone can help me, it would be
nice:

I have a string:

feature_vector. It is of the form 
<index: value, index: value, index: value>

I want to make this string into a dictionary so that I
can apply .keys() method

If I apply .keys() method straight away I get this
error:

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'keys'

Is there a way in which I can convert/typecast my
string thing to dictionary ??

Thax in advance
Dont



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