splitting a list into n groups

[Terry Reedy]

"Rajarshi Guha" <rajarshi at presidency.com> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.10.08.17.42.18.956301.22624 at presidency.com...
> Hi,
>   is there an efficient (pythonic) way in which I could split a list
into
> say 5 groups? By split I mean the the first x members would be one
group,
> the next x members another group and so on 5 times. (Obviously x =
> lengthof list/5)
>
> I have done this by a simple for loop and using indexes into the
list.
> But it does'nt seemm very elegant

Does it work correctly for all input cases?  Is it readable?  Is it
acceptibly fast?  If so, it is probably 'Pythonic' enough.

TJR