I have a string "{'datetime': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 21, 0, 56, 58)}" and I want to convert this to the object it represents. Using ast.literal_eval() gives:

ValueError: malformed string; 

because it does not allow for construction of objects (i.e. the datetime call). Is there anyway to either get ast to process this correctly, or to secure eval to prevent code injection?

Following up on Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams' idea:

import ast
import datetime

def parse_datetime_dict(astr,debug=False):
    try: tree=ast.parse(astr)
    except SyntaxError: raise ValueError(astr)
    for node in ast.walk(tree):
        if isinstance(node,(ast.Module,ast.Expr,ast.Dict,ast.Str,
                            ast.Attribute,ast.Num,ast.Name,ast.Load, ast.Tuple)): continue
        if (isinstance(node,ast.Call)
                and isinstance(node.func, ast.Attribute)
                and node.func.attr == 'datetime'): continue
        if debug:
            attrs=[attr for attr in dir(node) if not attr.startswith('__')]
            print(node)
            for attrname in attrs:
                print('    {k} ==> {v}'.format(k=attrname,v=getattr(node,attrname)))
        raise ValueError(astr)
    return eval(astr)

good_strings=["{'the_datetime': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 21, 0, 56, 58)}"]
bad_strings=["__import__('os'); os.unlink",
             "import os; os.unlink",
             "import(os)", # SyntaxError
             ]

for astr in good_strings:
    result=parse_datetime_dict(astr)    
    print('{s} ... [PASSED]'.format(s=astr))

for astr in bad_strings:
    try:
        result=parse_datetime_dict(astr)
    except ValueError:
        print('{s} ... [REJECTED]'.format(s=astr))
    else:
        sys.exit('ERROR: failed to catch {s!r}'.format(s=astr))

yields

{'the_datetime': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 21, 0, 56, 58)} ... [PASSED]
__import__('os'); os.unlink ... [REJECTED]
import os; os.unlink ... [REJECTED]
import(os) ... [REJECTED]