import itertools


def split_escaped_whitespace(text):
    """
    Split `text` on escaped whitespace (null+space or null+newline).
    Return a list of strings.
    """
    strings = text.split('\x00 ')
    strings = [string.split('\x00\n') for string in strings]
    # flatten list of lists of strings to list of strings:
    return list(itertools.chain(*strings))