How to convert string to list without eval or exec

[Peter Harris]

Peter Otten wrote:
> DomF wrote:
> 
> 
>>>>I'm not allowed to use eval or exec.
>>>
>>>- write to a file
>>>- load the file as module :-)
>>
>>This made me laugh out loud after reading all the heavy duty parsing
>>options, is that bad?
> 
> 
> It's just like eval and exec in that it allows to execute untrusted code.
> 
> Peter

Would it be safe to use eval but within a namespace with no globals or 
locals? Then the expression could only include literals.

Actually, builtins would be visible too. And you don't want to eval
"[ file('important_file','w') ]" !
But I think there's a way to hide builtins as well, although I forget 
what it is.

Peter Harris