greetings! the reason you have this problem is that what's in your datastore is "'[]'". so when you eval() that, the result is (still) a string and not an empty list -- the single quotes are part of your data!! i suppose eval(eval(stcData.Style)) should work in that case. if your data was quote-less, you would see your output as "style str is []" instead of "style str is '[]'".
fyi, your example is incomplete. your class is missing the Code field. hope this helps! -- wesley - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Core Python Programming", Prentice Hall, (c)2007,2001 "Python Fundamentals", Prentice Hall, (c)2009 http://corepython.com wesley.j.chun :: wesc+...@google.com developer relations :: google app engine -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to google-appeng...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.