How can I split and add new row?

Question

I have two rows:

  1.  [{'name': 'xxx', 'admin-status': 'up'}, {'name': 'zzz', 'admin-status': 'down'}]
  2.  {'name': 'yyy', 'admin-status': 'up'}

I want split row if it is list(first) row and add new row. result:

1. {'name': 'xxx', 'admin-status': 'up'}
2. {'name': 'zzz', 'admin-status': 'down'}
3. {'name': 'yyy', 'admin-status': 'up'}

DataFrame:

data = [
    "[{'name': 'xxx', 'admin-status': 'up'}, {'name': 'zzz', 'admin-status': 'down'}]",
    "{'name': 'yyy', 'admin-status': 'up'}"
]

df= pd.DataFrame(data,  columns=['data']))

I try chatgpt and other but I can not find solution.

Answer 1

Use ast.literal_eval to convert the strings to lists, with a custom function to ensure having a list, then explode:

from ast import literal_eval

def f(s):
    x = literal_eval(s)
    return x if isinstance(x, list) else [x]

df['data'] = df['data'].map(f)

out = df.explode('data')

Output:

                                      data
0    {'name': 'xxx', 'admin-status': 'up'}
0  {'name': 'zzz', 'admin-status': 'down'}
1    {'name': 'yyy', 'admin-status': 'up'}

Alternatively, if you want to keep strings, you could strip the [] then split with a regex and explode:

out = (df
   .assign(data=df['data'].str.strip('[]').str.split(', *(?={)'))
   .explode('data')
)