matching a string to extract substrings for which somefunctionreturns true

[Fredrik Lundh]

I wrote:

> if you cannot cache session data on the server side, I'd
> recommend inventing a custom record format, and doing your
> own parsing.  turning your data into e.g.
>
>    "foo:1:foobar:3:0+foo1:2:foobar1:3:1+foo2:2:foobar2:3:2"
>
> is trivial, and the resulting string can be trivially parsed by a couple
> of string splits and int() calls.

on the other hand, the "myeval" function I posted here

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general/433160

should be able to deal with your data, as well as handle data from
malevolent sources without bringing down your computer.

just add

    if token[1] == "(":
        out = []
        token = src.next()
        while token[1] != ")":
            out.append(_parse(src, token))
            token = src.next()
            if token[1] == ",":
                token = src.next()
        return tuple(out)

after the corresponding "[" part, and call it like:

    data = myeval("[" + input + "]")

</F>