Simple scripting question

I'm sure this is completely simple, but how to do you grab one value from a list returned from a function? i'm calling getTileCollision(%tileX, %tileY) and its returning a bunch of values in a string

my code is something like:

%tmp = mainTileMap.getTileCollision(%x, %y);

%tmp then has: active xScale yScale edgeCount x1 y1 x2 y2.. how do i assign just one of those values, namely active, to a variable?

thanks!