title: How to Split into Columns
body: <p>I have a file with two datasets in, which I'd like to read into Python as two columns.</p>
  
  <p>The data is in the form:</p>
  
  <pre><code>xxx yyy    xxx yyy   xxx yyy
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and so on, so I understand that I need to somehow split it up. I'm new to Python (and relatively new to programming), so I've struggled a bit so far. At the moment I've tried to use:</p>
  
  <pre><code>def read(file):
  
      column1=[]
      column2=[]
      readfile = open(file, 'r')
      a = (readfile.read())
      readfile.close()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>How would I go about splitting the read in file into column1 and column2?</p>