splitting and concatenating a string

I was wondering if python had a built in function similar to

string->list

and list->string in scheme.

So for example I would like to turn 'abc' into ['a','b','c'] and vice versa using a built in function.

String to list:

>>> list('abc')
['a', 'b', 'c']

List to string:

>>> ''.join(['a', 'b', 'c'])
'abc'

Split using a list comprehension [c for c in theString] .. and join them again using ''.join(theList). Other ways exist.