title: Convert a complex string to a list in python
body: <p>I retrieved the sting below form mysql table using python and I am having difficulty converting it into a list.</p>
  
  <pre><code>_string='[1,2,3,4]'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>My attempt</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; _string='[1,2,3,4]'
  &gt;&gt;&gt; sum(list(_string),[])
  &gt;&gt;&gt; list(_string)
  ['[', '1', ',', '2', ',', '3', ',', '4', ']']
  
  &gt;&gt;&gt; _string.strip('\n')
  '[1,2,3,4]'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Desired output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[1,2,3,4]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there and efficient way to get the desired output? as I will be doing a millions.</p>