List to Text back to List

[SimonPalmer]

On Nov 6, 8:33 pm, "Chris Rebert" <c... at rebertia.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 12:18 PM, SimonPalmer <simon.pal... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Nov 6, 8:11 pm, "Chris Rebert" <c... at rebertia.com> wrote:
> >> On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 12:04 PM, SimonPalmer <simon.pal... at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Hi, I am looking for a way to convert a List of floating point numbers
> >> > to and from text.  I am embedding it in an XML document and am looking
> >> > for a neat way to serialise and de-serialise a list from a text node.
> >> > I can easily write something to do it manually but I wondered whether
> >> > List had native support to go to and from text.
>
> >> > If not List, are there any other collections/arrays that do this?
>
> >> It's not really a matter of the collection, but more a matter of
> >> serialization format/library.
>
> >> If you want the serialized representation to be human-readable, use
> >> JSON (http://docs.python.org/library/json.html#module-json).
> >> If that's not a requirement, use pickle
> >> (http://docs.python.org/library/pickle.html#module-pickle).
> >> Both modules can convert simple Python data, such as your list of
> >> floats, to a bytestream and back again.
>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Chris
> >> --
> >> Follow the path of the Iguana...http://rebertia.com
>
> >> > TIA
> >> > Simon
> >> > --
> >> >http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
> > I looked at pickle, but the problem is that I want my XML to be
> > readable by languages other than python, so it sort of precludes it.
> > JSON would be perfect, but I think the module only exists in 2.6, is
> > that right?  Unfortunately I am bound to 2.4.
>
> > It is looking more and more like I am going to have to roll my own.
>
> The module is available as a third-party library for previous Python
> versions athttp://www.undefined.org/python/
>
> Cheers,
> Chris
> --
> Follow the path of the Iguana...http://rebertia.com

simplejson did the trick.

the trouble with a couple of suggestions is that they are only really
any good for 1 dimensional lists, although I confess I didn't make
that requirement clear in my original question

sorry for capitalising list, my mistake, hope you weren't too confused.