I'm curious if their is some python magic I may not know to accomplish a bit of frivolity given the line: csvData.append(','.join([line.split(":").strip() for x in L])) I'm attempting to split a line on :, trim whitespace around it, and join on , problem is, since the array is returned from line.split(":"), the for x in L #<== L doesn't exist! causes issues since I have no name for the array returned by line.split(":") So I'm curious if there is a sexy piece of syntax I could use to accomplish this in one shot? Cheers!