python - convert string to float in a loop -

i don't understand why not work. can me?

i have text file in data listed this.

04/05/2015 15:30 58.6

04/05/2015 16:00 56.3

...

each line has 3 space separated data.

i read

with open('./data') fi:      data = [[t t in line.split() ]for line in fi] 

then variable has data

[['04/05/2015', '15:30', '58.6'],  ['04/05/2015', '16:00', '56.3'], ... ] 

i'd take out data in 3rd column, made loop.

for t in data:     a=float(t[2]) 

but got error

valueerror                                traceback (most recent call      last) <ipython-input-76-83c96b309de0> in <module>()       2 i=0       3 t in data: ----> 4     a=float(t[2])       5   valueerror: not convert string float:   

what don't understand if replace 'a=' 'print ', printed values.

for t in data:     print float(t[2]) 

why not work substitution printing values?

it seems have unicode characters in input file. can specify encoding open file codecs.open:

import codecs codecs.open("input.txt", encoding="utf-8") f:   data = [line.split() line in f] = [] row in data:   print [col col in row] t in data:   try:     a.append(float(t[2]))   except valueerror:     break print(a) 

the above prints [58.6, 56.3] with

04/05/2015 15:30 58.6 04/05/2015 16:00 56.3 04/05/2015 16:00 \xc2\xa0 

in input.txt.