CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonlistcsvimportdelimiter
Halo
Halo

Reputation: 21

How to import a file with delimiters irregular with the csv module in python?

I suppose that is a very simple question, but no for me until now... I have a file with the columns like this:

1 2  3 4  5   3
6 7 -8 9  0   5
4 8 -4 6 -7   8

and I have this code in python:

import csv

MyValues = [] #create an empty list
values = csv.reader(open('myfile', 'rb'), delimiter=' ')
for row in values:
    MyValues.append(row[5] if len(row)>4 else None)
print MyValues

The problem is that the delimiter is not only a space, sometimes is two or 3 spaces. Until now I could not fix, even using sniffer or dialect routines... Someone have any idea how can I import the columns?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1540

Answers (1)

Andrew Clark
Andrew Clark

Reputation: 208525

Instead of using the csv module, just use str.split() on each line:

MyValues = []
for line in open('myfile'):
    row = line.split()
    MyValues.append(row[5] if len(row)>4 else None)
print MyValues

str.split() splits the string on whitespace by default, and consecutive whitespace characters will be treated as a single delimiter.

Upvotes: 6

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