def str2lst(astr_input, astr_separator=' '):
    """
  Breaks a string at <astr_separator> and joins into a
  list. Steps along all list elements and strips white
  space.

  The list elements are explicitly ascii encoded.
  """
    alistI = astr_input.split(astr_separator)
    alistJ = []
    for i in range(0, len(alistI)):
        alistI[i] = alistI[i].strip()
        alistI[i] = alistI[i].encode('ascii')
        if len(alistI[i]):
            alistJ.append(alistI[i])
    return alistJ
