extract an element of a list into a string

[alexs]

Thanks for your help, I understand this a lot better now. Turns out there was a strange error in my code I tracked down that was causing my code to no compile when I try to extract an element out of the list. This error is a result of not having to declare variables, any other language would have failed on this line, but instead if failed on a different line, misdirecting me.