# Convert an Array Written as a String to An Actual Array
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** strings, array, parsing
**Created:** [May 28, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013 "2021-05-28T19:43:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@TheCedarPrince](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TheCedarPrince)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/1 "2021-05-28T19:43:25Z")
Hi all,
I have no idea how this happened, but I am using a dataset where in the file, arrays were actually stored as strings like this:
```julia
"[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]"
```
How do I best convert the above into an actual array of integer values?
Thanks!
~ tcp 🌳
---
### Author:  [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/2 "2021-05-28T19:49:53Z")
```julia
julia> str = "[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]";
julia> parse.(Int, split(chop(str; head=1, tail=1), ','))
5-element Vector{Int64}:
1
2
3
4
5
```
---
### Author:  [@TheCedarPrince](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/TheCedarPrince)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/3 "2021-05-28T19:59:23Z")
This is great - I really like your solution. For completeness, here is another solution I found from user Anand Jain:
```julia
julia> @benchmark (Meta.parse($str) |> eval)
BenchmarkTools.Trial:
memory estimate: 2.58 KiB
allocs estimate: 40
--------------
minimum time: 104.374 μs (0.00% GC)
median time: 109.657 μs (0.00% GC)
mean time: 117.397 μs (0.00% GC)
maximum time: 899.178 μs (0.00% GC)
--------------
samples: 10000
evals/sample: 1
```
And here is the timing of yours @fredrikekre :
```julia
julia> @benchmark parse.(Int, split(chop($str; head=1, tail=1), ','))
BenchmarkTools.Trial:
memory estimate: 304 bytes
allocs estimate: 3
--------------
minimum time: 672.151 ns (0.00% GC)
median time: 703.967 ns (0.00% GC)
mean time: 738.335 ns (2.35% GC)
maximum time: 32.701 μs (97.49% GC)
--------------
samples: 10000
evals/sample: 152
```
---
### Author:  [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2021, 6:59pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/4 "2021-05-29T18:59:17Z")
Regex is usually used for this task, for example:
`parse.(Int,split(replace(str, r"[^0-9.]"=>" ")))`
---
### Author:  [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/5 "2021-05-29T19:03:33Z")
A variant of @fredrikekre’s solution using strip instead of chop:
`parse.(Int,split(strip(str,['[',']']), ","))`
---
### Author:  [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2021, 7:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/6 "2021-05-29T19:03:47Z")
I have a very similar problem. I want to copy a color scheme from [colorbrewer2.org](http://colorbrewer2.org) and convert it to RGB colors.
I can copy&paste the `Colors for this scheme as a JS array`, which gives one of the following
```julia
['#edf8fb','#b2e2e2','#66c2a4','#238b45']
['rgb(237,248,251)','rgb(178,226,226)','rgb(102,194,164)','rgb(35,139,69)']
```
I know Julia already has a Colorbrewer palette, but the website is much more convenient.
How would I convert this?
---
### Author:  [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2021, 7:29pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/7 "2021-05-29T19:29:58Z")
@StatisticalMouse, would this work for your use case:
```julia
str = "['rgb(237,248,251)','rgb(178,226,226)','rgb(102,194,164)','rgb(35,139,69)']"
s2 = replace.(split(str,"rgb"),r"[^0-9.]"=>" ")[2:end]
[parse.(Int, split(s)) for s in s2]
4-element Vector{Vector{Int64}}:
[237, 248, 251]
[178, 226, 226]
[102, 194, 164]
[35, 139, 69]
```
---
### Author:  [@StatisticalMouse](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/StatisticalMouse)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2021, 8:33am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/convert-an-array-written-as-a-string-to-an-actual-array/62013/8 "2021-05-30T08:33:06Z")
It works! This produces the colors in the input:
```julia
str = "['rgb(255,255,204)','rgb(255,237,160)','rgb(254,217,118)','rgb(254,178,76)','rgb(253,141,60)','rgb(252,78,42)','rgb(227,26,28)','rgb(189,0,38)','rgb(128,0,38)']"
z = @chain str begin
replace.(split(_,"rgb"),r"[^0-9.]"=>" ")[2:end]
[parse.(Int, split(s)) for s in _]
(c->RGB(c[1]/255,c[2]/255,c[3]/255)).(_)
end
```
