title: unable to convert python type str into a list array
body: <p>i'm new to python, and i am developing a tool/script for ssh and sftp.  i noticed some of the code i'm using creates what i thought was a string array</p>
  
  <pre><code>channel_data = str()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>to hold the console output from an ssh session. if i check "type" on channel_data it comes back as  class 'str' , </p>
  
  <p>but yet if i perform for loop to read each item in channel_data , and channel_data contains what appears to be 30 lines from an ssh console</p>
  
  <pre><code>for line in channel_data:
      if "my text" in line:
          found = True
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>each iteration of "line" shows a single character, as if the whole ssh console output of 30 lines of text is broken down into single character array. i do have \n within all the text.</p>
  
  <p>for example channel_data would contain "Cisco Nexus Operation System (NX-OS) Software\r\nCopyright (c) 2002-2016\r\n ..... etc. etc.. ", but again would read in my for loop and print out "C" then "i" then "s" etc..</p>
  
  <p>i'm trying to understand do i have a char array here or a string array here that is made up of single string characters and how to convert it into a string list based on \n within Python?</p>