BUG: Fix creating a np.matrix from string syntax involving booleans (#8497)

Fixes #8459

* DOC: add release note [ci skip]

1 files changed, 5 insertions, 39 deletions

diff --git a/numpy/matrixlib/defmatrix.py b/numpy/matrixlib/defmatrix.py
index bd14846c6..7026fad1a 100644
--- a/numpy/matrixlib/defmatrix.py
+++ b/numpy/matrixlib/defmatrix.py
@@ -3,49 +3,15 @@ from __future__ import division, absolute_import, print_function
 __all__ = ['matrix', 'bmat', 'mat', 'asmatrix']
 
 import sys
+import ast
 import numpy.core.numeric as N
 from numpy.core.numeric import concatenate, isscalar, binary_repr, identity, asanyarray
 from numpy.core.numerictypes import issubdtype
 
-# make translation table
-_numchars = '0123456789.-+jeEL'
-
-if sys.version_info[0] >= 3:
-    class _NumCharTable:
-        def __getitem__(self, i):
-            if chr(i) in _numchars:
-                return chr(i)
-            else:
-                return None
-    _table = _NumCharTable()
-    def _eval(astr):
-        str_ = astr.translate(_table)
-        if not str_:
-            raise TypeError("Invalid data string supplied: " + astr)
-        else:
-            return eval(str_)
-
-else:
-    _table = [None]*256
-    for k in range(256):
-        _table[k] = chr(k)
-    _table = ''.join(_table)
-
-    _todelete = []
-    for k in _table:
-        if k not in _numchars:
-            _todelete.append(k)
-    _todelete = ''.join(_todelete)
-    del k
-
-    def _eval(astr):
-        str_ = astr.translate(_table, _todelete)
-        if not str_:
-            raise TypeError("Invalid data string supplied: " + astr)
-        else:
-            return eval(str_)
-
 def _convert_from_string(data):
+    for char in '[]':
+        data = data.replace(char, '')
+
     rows = data.split(';')
     newdata = []
     count = 0
@@ -54,7 +20,7 @@ def _convert_from_string(data):
         newrow = []
         for col in trow:
             temp = col.split()
-            newrow.extend(map(_eval, temp))
+            newrow.extend(map(ast.literal_eval, temp))
         if count == 0:
             Ncols = len(newrow)
         elif len(newrow) != Ncols: