sequencesstringslistsand files datestr input("enter date (mm/dd/yyyy)"monthstrdaystryearstr datestr split("/"here have gotten the date as string and split it at the slashes then "unpackedthe list of three strings into the variables monthstrdaystrand yearstr using simultaneous assignment the next step is to convert monthstr into an appropriate number in the unicode decoding programwe used the eval function to convert from string data type into numeric data type recall that eval evaluates string as python expression it is very general and can be used to turn strings into nearly any other python data type it' the swiss army knife of string conversion you can also convert strings into numbers using the python numeric type conversion functions (int()float())that were covered in here are some quick examples int(" " float(" " float(" " int(" "traceback (most recent call last)file ""line in valueerrorinvalid literal for int(with base ' as the last example showsthe string passed to these conversion functions must be numeric literal of the appropriate formotherwise you will get an error there is one subtle "gotchato consider when choosing between eval(and int(to convert strings into numbers python does not allow an int literal to have any leading zeroes as resultattempting to eval string that contains leading will produce an error on the other handthe int function handles this case without problem int(" " int(" " int(" " eval(" "traceback (most recent call last)file ""line in file ""line syntaxerrorinvalid token in older versions of pythonliterals with leading were taken to be octal (base values