Python 3 with the range function - file-io

Question

I can type in the following code in the terminal, and it works:
for i in range(5):
print(i)
And it will print:
0
1
2
3
4
as expected. However, I tried to write a script that does a similar thing:
print(current_chunk.data)
read_chunk(file, current_chunk)
numVerts, numFaces, numEdges = current_chunk.data
print(current_chunk.data)
print(numVerts)
for vertex in range(numVerts):
print("Hello World")
current_chunk.data is gained from the following method:
def read_chunk(file, chunk):
line = file.readline()
while line.startswith('#'):
line = file.readline()
chunk.data = line.split()
The output for this is:
['OFF']
['490', '518', '0']
490
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/leif/src/install/linux2/.blender/scripts/io/import_scene_off.py", line 88, in execute
load_off(self.properties.path, context)
File "/home/leif/src/install/linux2/.blender/scripts/io/import_scene_off.py", line 68, in load_off
for vertex in range(numVerts):
TypeError: 'str' object cannot be interpreted as an integer
So, why isn't it spitting out Hello World 490 times? Or is the 490 being thought of as a string?
I opened the file like this:
def load_off(filename, context):
file = open(filename, 'r')

Answer 1

'490' is a string. Try int('490').

Answer 2

Sigh, never mind, it did turn out to by evaluated as a string. Changing the for loop to
for vertex in range(int(numVerts)):
print("Hello World")
fixed the problem.