table (ascii text) lin ayout recognition

[vbfoobar at gmail.com]

Hello,

I am looking for python code useful to process
tables that are in ASCII text. The code must
determine where are the columns (fields).
Concerned tables for my application are various,
but their columns are not very complicated
to locate for a human, because even
when ignoring the semantic of  words,
our eyes see vertical alignments

Here is a sample table (must be viewed
with fixed-width font to see alignments):
=================================

44544      ipod          apple     black         102
GFGFHHF-12 unknown thing bizar     brick mortar  tbc
45fjk      do not know   + is less               biac
           disk          seagate   250GB         130
5G_gff                   tbd       tbd
gjgh88hgg  media record  a and b                 12
hjj        foo           bar       hop           zip
hg uy oi   hj uuu ii a   qqq ccc v ZZZ Ughj
qdsd       zert                    nope          nope

=================================

I want the python code that builds a representation
of this table (for exemple a list of lists, where each list
represents a table line, each element of the list
being a field value).

Any hints?
thanks