import re


def chop(path,depth=2):
    """
    Chop an MDSplus path up into a list of substrings

    Parameters
    ----------
    path : string
        an MDSplus path
    depth : integer, optional
       How many of the initial substrings to throw out. The default is 2.

    Returns
    -------
    list of substrings
    """
    delimiters = ".","::",":"
    regexPattern = '|'.join(map(re.escape, delimiters))
    return re.split(regexPattern, path)[depth:]