Converting a list to a Numarray array?

[S Timmins]

Alex:
      Thanks for your answer but what if the list comes from a file
via split and:

   somelist = ['1','2','3']

Then you have to long each element because the list does not contain a
numeric type!

 I am also confused about how to ignore certain "records" from a
similar list from reading this file:
#Zip   Julian  mm dd year icd9  age m/f race   <--- NOT in file
03901 2451634 03 30 2000 V3000   0 1 1
03901 2451642 04 07 2000 5990    0 2 1
03901 2451648 04 13 2000 3004   16 2 1

I do this: 
 input = open(dir+file)
 s = input.read()
 buf = s.split()
# I really want to select the desired lines here so the code below
# has fewer records to handle.
 length = len(buf)/9
 Zip = range(length)
 for i in xrange(length): Zip[i] =  long(buf[long(i)*9])
 ...
 Icd9 = [' ']*length
 for i in xrange(length): Icd9[i] = buf[5L+long(i)*9]

 ...

but wish I could select the lines in buf (assuming it were 2-D) to be
converted and say choose just the "rows" (lines) which contain say the
"V3000" code in the icd9 "field".

Since Python only seems to have 1-D lists it is difficult to "reshape"
buf to a Number of lines by 9 list and then "slice" the icd9 field to
choose just the desired records.

   There must be some tricks I don't know to handle this...

   Sidey  (PS My parents gave me this name - it rhymes with "Heidi"!!)