Changing square brackets to curly brackets in list

Question

I have been trying to change a list of 2D coordinates with square brackets to curly brackets so I can plot the set of points in Mathematica. However, it does not plot because it puts quotation marks around each numeric value. Why is it doing this, and what should I change? The original .csv file looks like [x1, y1],[x2, y2],... and I want {{x1,y1},{x2,y2},...}

My attempt:

list = Import["C:\\Users\Kenny\Python\AngleTop.csv"];
listy = Flatten[list, 1];
flat1 = StringDelete[listy, "["];
flat2 = StringDelete[flat1, "]"];
flat3 = StringDelete[flat2, " "];
party = Partition[flat3, 2];
DensityHistogram[party]

Answer 1

{x,y,...} is just syntactic sugar for List[x,y,...].

You can add List to every pair and wrap all of them on a big list.

(* copied from Jason B's answer *)
csvData = "[8,18],[0,17],[6,8],[3,4],[1,4],[12,6],[13,3],[18,8],[5,10],[8,13],[8,13],[13,9],[10,4],[12,5],[4,5],[2,16],[20,16],[8,7],[8,16],[1,0]"

ToExpression["{" <> StringReplace[csvData, {"[" -> "List["}] <> "}"]

{{8, 18}, {0, 17}, {6, 8}, {3, 4}, {1, 4}, {12, 6}, {13, 3}, {18, 8}, {5, 10}, {8, 13}, {8, 13}, {13, 9}, {10, 4}, {12, 5}, {4, 5}, {2, 16}, {20, 16}, {8, 7}, {8, 16}, {1, 0}}}

Answer 2

foo = ReadList[StringToStream[#], Record, RecordSeparators -> {{"["}, {"]"}}] /. 
     x_String :> ToExpression["{" ~~ x ~~ "}"] &;

example1 = "[x1,y1],[x2,y2],[x3,y3]";
example2 = 
  "[8,18],[0,17],[6,8],[3,4],[1,4],[12,6],[13,3],[18,8],[5,10],[8,13],
[8,13],[13,9],[10,4],[12,5],[4,5],[2,16],[20,16],[8,7],[8,16],[1,0]";

foo@example1

{{x1, y1}, {x2, y2}, {x3, y3}}

foo@example2

{{8, 18}, {0, 17}, {6, 8}, {3, 4}, {1, 4}, {12, 6}, {13, 3}, {18, 8}, {5, 10}, {8, 13}, {8, 13}, {13, 9}, {10, 4}, {12, 5}, {4, 5}, {2, 16}, {20, 16}, {8, 7}, {8, 16}, {1, 0}}

Answer 3

f[string_] := 
 Partition[
  ToExpression /@ 
   StringSplit[StringReplace[string, {"[" -> "", "]" -> ""}], ","], 2]

f["[x1,y1],[x2,y2]"]

(*
{{x1, y1}, {x2, y2}}
*)

Answer 4

Your method works just fine, except at the end the elements of party are strings, {{"x1","y1"},...}. So just change that line to read

party = Partition[ToExpression /@ flat3, 2];

Another method, similar to the answer above, but different in that I read the whole file in as one string and work on it. If I have this text file,

[8,18],[0,17],[6,8],[3,4],[1,4],[12,6],[13,3],[18,8],[5,10],[8,13],[8,13],[13,9],[10,4],[12,5],[4,5],[2,16],[20,16],[8,7],[8,16],[1,0]

saved as test.csv, then this works,

ToExpression["{" <> StringReplace[
   Import["test.csv", "Text"], {"[" -> "{", "]" -> "}"}] <> "}"]
(* {{8, 18}, {0, 17}, {6, 8}, {3, 4}, {1, 4}, {12, 6}, {13, 
  3}, {18, 8}, {5, 10}, {8, 13}, {8, 13}, {13, 9}, {10, 4}, {12, 
  5}, {4, 5}, {2, 16}, {20, 16}, {8, 7}, {8, 16}, {1, 0}} *)