title: Split string into array in Python
body: <p>I have a string with the following structure.</p>
  
  <p>string = "[abcd, abc, a, b, abc]"</p>
  
  <p>I would like to convert that into an array. I keep using the split function in Python but I get spaces and the brackets on the start and the end of my new array. I tried working around it with some if statements but I keep missing letters in the end from some words.</p>
  
  <p>Keep in mind that I don't know the length of the elements in the string. It could be 1, 2, 3 etc.</p>