From: Paul Stickney <pstickne@...>
Date: 2007-03-24T08:20:07+09:00
Subject: Re: How to Convert String to Array

require 'yaml'
some_obj = YAML.load(gets.chomp) rescue nil

If your input is "[1,2,3,4]" then it will return an array with 4
elements of 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Of course, you could input
any valid (or not so valid) YAML and get back a String or Hash or....
The rescue is just to ensure we get a nil instead of an error on
really bad input.

Enjoy,
Paul