s = ('Monday 7373 3663657 2272 547757699 reached 100%',\
     'Tuesday 7726347 552 766463 2253 under-achieved 0%',\
     'Wednesday 9899898 8488947 6472 77449 reached 100%',\
     'Thursday 636648 553 22344 5699 under-achieved 0%',\
     'Friday 997 3647757 78736632 357599 over-achieved 200%')
# Make a table from s
table = [line.split() for line in s]
# it is possible to transpose the table:
transposed = zip(*table)
# transposed is now a list each of whose members is a COLUMN of table.
### also OK: zip(*(table))

## Pick a column
col0=transposed[0]
## Find string lengths of each element in col0
col0Lens = [len(str(cell)) for cell in col0]
maxwidth_col0  = max(col0Lens)

maxWidths = [max([len(str(cell)) for cell in column]) for column in transposed]

# format it
def formatLine(line):
    # return [ str.ljust(str(field),w) for (field, w) in zip(line, maxWidths)]
    return [ str(field).ljust(w) for (field, w) in zip(line, maxWidths)]

line0 = formatLine(table[0])
formatted_line0 = '|'.join(line0)

NewList = ['|'.join(formatLine(line)) for line in table]

# it can be made for all of the lines
Str3 = '\n'.join(NewList)

# and can be printed in this form
print Str3

# Get files in cur dir matching pattern
import os, fnmatch
fnmatch.filter(os.listdir(os.getcwd()),'*.txt')
# ['editors.txt', 'justification_demo.txt', 'python_pitfalls_site.txt', \
# 'rock_paper_scissors.txt', 'Tutor Digest, Vol 29, Issue 32.txt', \
# 'zip_demo.txt']

s = "spam;egg mail"
x_re = re.compile(r'[; ]')

"""
Try this now: 
    >>> s.split("; ")
    ['spam;egg mail']
    >>> x_re.split(s)
    ['spam', 'egg', 'mail']
>>>