notation

[deanhystad]

curr_line[0] is not "19260701" or 19260701', '0.09', '-0.22, '-0.30', '0.009'. It is "19260701,0.09,-0.22,-0.30,0.009\n" because there are no spaces in the str. Maybe you should use split(",")

line = "19260701,0.09,-0.22,-0.30,0.009\n"
print(line.strip().split(","))

Output:
['19260701', '0.09', '-0.22', '-0.30', '0.009']