Python: Split a string, including the whitespace character -

i'm trying split given string component characters, while keeping whitespace characters in place. example of should is:

input: 'the string'  output: ['t', 'h', 'e', ' ', 's', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g'] 

i relatively new python (using 2.7.6) , aware of .split() method. know assumes splitting on whitespace character (' ') if delimiter not set. however, when specify delimiter empty (ie split characters) string.split(''), returns valueerror: empty separator.

does have suggestion how split string, while keeping whitespace characters? understand accomplished loop going on every character in string , appending list, i'm hoping find way without doing so.

this first post on stackoverflow, understandable , has not been answered. thanks.

you can use cast list() string:

>>> list('the string') ['t', 'h', 'e', ' ', 's', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g']