code: def tabstr2list(data):
      
      alist = data.split(os.linesep)
      blist = alist[1].split('\t')
  
      clist = []
      for num in range(0, len(alist)):
          ilist = alist[num].split('\t')
          clist = clist+[ilist]
      cclist = clist[:-1]
        #the last element is turning out to be empty
        #this is because the string ends with a os.linesep
      return cclist
docs: tabstr2list