Parsing a search string

[Fuzzyman]

That's not bad going considering you've only run out of alcohol at 6 in
the morning and *then* ask python questions.

Anyway - you could write a charcter-by-character parser function that
would do that in a few minutes...

My 'listquote' module has one - but it splits on commas not whitespace.
Sounds like you're looking for a one-liner though.... regular
expressions *could* do it...............

Regards,

Fuzzy
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/atlantibots/pythonutils.html#llistquote