"""
Making lists out of strings and strings out of lists
http://openbookproject.net/thinkcs/python/english2e/ch09.html#strings-and-lists
"""

# Python has a command called list that takes a sequence type as an argument 
# and creates a list out of its elements.

list("Crunchy Frog")

# given a list of characters we can join them together to form a string:
import string
char_list = list("Frog")
print char_list
print string.join(char_list, '')

# note the second parameter of string.join:  it determines which character
# to insert between each element of the list.
# this way we can easily create comma delmited output:

name_list = ['Asa', 'Mark', 'Adam']
print string.join(name_list, ',')

print string.join(name_list, '**')

# the opposite action is possible using string.split:

import string
song = "The rain in Spain..."
print string.split(song)

# this form of string.split splits the string on any whitespace character

# string.split has an optional argument which specifies the delimiter.
# suppose we are given a comma delimited string such as:

comma_delimited = 'Asa,Mark,Adam'