def unpack_file_list(file_list_path):
    """
    Utility function typically used to read the filenames stored in a
    text file with 1 absolute path to a file per line in the file.

    Simply reads all lines of the specified file and returns them as a list,
    ignoring empty lines.
    """
    with open(file_list_path, "r") as in_f:
        files = list(map(lambda x: x.strip('\n'),
                         filter(None, in_f.readlines())))
    return files