def _parse_line(line):
    """
    Function to parse lines in a tab-seprated value file format.

    This function accepts a string (a line read from a tab-separated
    input file). It removes the newline character and splits the string
    at each tab stop, returning a list of the remaining substrings in which each
    list entry corresponds to the contents of one cell in the file.

    """
    line = line.replace('\n', '')
    str_list = line.split('\t')
    return str_list
