Converting from strings to integers

[Stephen Smith]

Hi, I'm new to Python and am just trying out an example of file I/O. 
I am trying to read a file (successfully), and then multiply a value
by another static variable.  The value from the file was outputting in
the 'string' format, and I need to convert it into an integer.  I
tried using the int(x) command, but it doesn't seem to care, it is
still in the string format.  The number is a plain integer (87, for
example).  How on earth do you convert the value to an integer? 
Thanks for your help!