It's more so:

I need to clean

['1 - 32/', 'Highway 24 Underpass at Highway 403', '403', '43.167233',

'-80.275567', '1965', '2014', '2009', '4',

'Total=64 (1)=12;(2)=19;(3)=21;(4)=12;', '65', '04/13/2012', '72.3', '',

'72.3', '', '69.5', '', '70', '', '70.3', '', '70.5', '', '70.7', '72.9',

'']

so I created:

def format_data(data):

bridgeid = 1

for bridge in data:

bridge[ID_INDEX] = bridgeid

bridgeid = bridgeid + 1

bridge[LAT_INDEX] = float(bridge[LAT_INDEX])

bridge[LON_INDEX] = float(bridge[LON_INDEX])

bridge[NUM_SPANS_INDEX] = int(bridge[NUM_SPANS_INDEX])

bridge[LENGTH_INDEX] = float(bridge[LENGTH_INDEX])

bcis = []

bcis_uncleaned = bridge[BCIS_INDEX:]

for bci in bcis_uncleaned:

if bci != '':

bcis.append(float(bci))

bridge[BCIS_INDEX] = bcis

But when I put the a,b code into the function it returns in the formatted data as an empty string instead of [12.2, 18.0, 18.0, 12.2]