from tkFileDialog import askopenfilenames

a = askopenfilenames()
print a
print type(a)

'''
--output--
J:/PortablePython_1.1_py2.6.1/Aatest26/tk_new/rgb2hex.py
J:/PortablePython_1.1_py2.6.1/Aatest26/tk_new/bluebtn.jpg
J:/PortablePython_1.1_py2.6.1/Aatest26/tk_new/redbtn.jpg
<type 'unicode'>
'''

---- behaviour seen on windows xp 2.6.1 python release.  Linux
distributions seem fine.
---- parsing above string (as it's not a tuple anymore) is difficult as
it is a list of filenames separated by a space but spaces can be in the
middle of filenames.