problem coverting string data file to dictionary

[AKNL]

@buran & Larz60+:

Thank you both for your input. One thing that is definitely clear, is to avoid use of eval(). I had read about the dangers but did not know of an alternative. Not familiar with 'json' files. will definitely look into it.
Using the suggestion, I was able to output tstdic.txt (and most of the orginal data file) as:

Output:
{"voornaam": "Thomas", "geslacht": "M", "t8306": "26794", "n8589": "4856", "n9094": "6559", "n9599": "6412", "n0004": "5897", "p8589": "8972", "p9094": "11424", "p9599": "11760", "p0004": "11324"}

format as suggested by buran, using:

line = line.strip().replace("'", '"').replace('"{', "{").replace('}"', "}")

and as expected,

d1 = json.loads(line)

then created dictionary without using eval().

The problem with converting "voornaam" values containing an apostrophe, however, still remains. I can't seem to find a way to reformat these entries to conform to json or eval. For that reason may be I will keep the topic open.

Thanks again.