title: TypeError: Float() argument must be a string or a number when reading a list()
body: <p>I am currently working on a simple demo that reads an excel file with two columns and extracts the data from each row of the columns into two different lists.</p>
  
  <p>That all works fine, but when I try to plot the data using matplotlib I get this error.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>TypeError: float() argument must be a string or a number</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I understand that the error is being caused by the float values in the second list, the should just be integers. What I do not understand is how to prevent them from becoming floats when they are read into the list. </p>
  
  <pre><code>[text:u'Joe', text:u'Sam', text:u'Bobby', text:u'Tom', text:u'Jane']
  [number:23.0, number:36.0, number:19.0, number:31.0, number:28.0]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have tried typecasting in several different places, but always get the same error.</p>
  
  <pre><code>TypeError: int() argument must be a string or a number, not 'Cell'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here is the method that I am using for this program</p>
  
  <pre><code>def bargraph(self, fileName, xlabel, title):
          people = list()
          dollars = list()
          workbook = xlrd.open_workbook(fileName)
          worksheet = workbook.sheet_by_index(0)
  
          for row in range(worksheet.nrows):
              people.append(worksheet.cell(row ,0))
  
          for row in range(worksheet.nrows):
              dollars.append(worksheet.cell(row, 1))
  
  
          plt.bar(people, dollars, 1, color="blue")
          plt.xlabel(xlabel) 
          plt.title(title)
          plt.show()
  </code></pre>