Python: Very Basic, Can't figure out why it is not splitting into the larger number listed but rather into individual integers
<p>Really quick question here, some other people helped me on another problem but I can't get any of their code to work because I don't understand something very fundamental here.</p>

<pre><code>8000.5   16745     0.1257
8001.0   16745     0.1242
8001.5   16745     0.1565
8002.0   16745     0.1595
8002.5   16745     0.1093
8003.0   16745     0.1644
</code></pre>

<p>I have a data file as such, and when I type</p>

<pre><code>f1 = open(sys.argv[1], 'rt')
for line in f1:
    fields = line.split()
    print list(fields [0])
</code></pre>

<p>I get the output</p>

<pre><code>['1', '6', '8', '2', '5', '.', '5']
['1', '6', '8', '2', '6', '.', '0']
['1', '6', '8', '2', '6', '.', '5']
['1', '6', '8', '2', '7', '.', '0']
['1', '6', '8', '2', '7', '.', '5']
['1', '6', '8', '2', '8', '.', '0']
['1', '6', '8', '2', '8', '.', '5']
['1', '6', '8', '2', '9', '.', '0']
</code></pre>

<p>Whereas I would have expected from trialling stuff like print list(fields) to get something like</p>

<pre><code>[16825.5, 162826.0 ....] 
</code></pre>

<p>What obvious thing am I missing here?</p>

<p>thanks!</p>
