Return a variable in a Python list with double quotes instead of single

Question

I am trying to return a variable from a list of strings in double quotes rather than single.

For example, if my list is

List = ["A", "B"]

if I type List[0] the output is 'A' . Rather, I want "A" . Is there a way to do that? I need this because of an external script that runs in ArcGIS, which accepts only variables within double quotes.

Answer 1

You could use json.dumps()

>>> import json
>>> List = ["A", "B"]
>>> print json.dumps(List)
["A", "B"]

Answer 2

If you need the output formatted in a particular way, use something like str.format() :

>>> print('"{0}"'.format(List[0]))
"A"

The quotes you used to define the strings in the list are forgotten by Python as soon as the line is parsed. If you want to emit a string with quotes around it, you have to do it yourself.

What you're seeing is the Python interpreter displaying a string representation of the value of the expression. Specifically, if you type an expression into the interpreter that doesn't evaluate to None , it will call repr on the result in order to generate a string representation that it can display. For a string, this includes single quotes.

The interactive interpreter is essentially doing something like this each time you type in an expression (called, say, expr ):

result = expr
if result is not None:
    print(repr(result))

Note that my example, print returns None , so the interpreter itself doesn't print anything. Meanwhile, the print function outputs the string itself, bypassing the logic above.