def parse_attributes( string ):
    """Helper function to parse a GFF3 attributes column (i.e. a string with semi-colon separated key=value pairs)
    and return a dict of the key/value pairs"""
    result = {}
    parts = string.split( ";" )
    for part in parts:
        keyValue = part.split( "=" )
        result[keyValue[0]] = keyValue[1]
    return result