python - Converting string to tuple without splitting characters

Question

I am striving to convert a string to a tuple without splitting the characters of the string in the process. Can somebody suggest an easy method to do this. Need a one liner.

Fails

   a = 'Quattro TT'
   print tuple(a)

Works

  a = ['Quattro TT']  
  print tuple(a)

Since my input is a string, I tried the code below by converting the string to a list, which again splits the string into characters ..

Fails

a = 'Quattro TT'
print tuple(list(a))

Expected Output:

('Quattro TT')

Generated Output:

('Q', 'u', 'a', 't', 't', 'r', 'o', ' ', 'T', 'T')

Answer 1

You can just do (a,). No need to use a function. (Note that the comma is necessary.)

Essentially, tuple(a) means to make a tuple of the contents of a, not a tuple consisting of just a itself. The "contents" of a string (what you get when you iterate over it) are its characters, which is why it is split into characters.