CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.7
AJW
AJW

Reputation: 5873

read and write zip lists in python

I am looking to read and write python zip lists - but I am not able to find excatly how to acheive ethis. So, I have the following:

zipofalllists=zip([a],[b],[c],[d],[e]..)

where [a],[b],[c],[d],[e] are just lists (mix made of strings, integers and floats) of equal dimension.

Now, id like to write and read this zip list to/from a text file. I was thinking of writing the zipofalllists as a csv at first - but I am not sure this is the right approach.

So, I have something like:

with open("master_csv_file.csv", "wb") as f:
    fileWriter = csv.writer(f, delimiter='|',quotechar='"', quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)
    for row in zip(*masterzip):
        fileWriter.writerow(row)

but.. I am not sure this is the right approach. This way I do get a csv file, but I am unsure also on how to read and unpack this csv back to the original lists (newbie here - please excuse this 101 question).

Confused as to what is the best/fool proof approach here.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1855

Answers (2)

monkut
monkut

Reputation: 43870

json is nice, or pickle.

import json

zipofalllists=zip([a],[b],[c],[d],[e])

# write
with open("out.json", "w") as out_f:
    json.dump(zipofalllists, out_f)

# read
with open("out.json", "r") as in_f:
    alllists = json.load(in_f)

Both pickle and json use load([file object]) for read and dump([object], [file object]) for writes directly from/to a file. You can also use loads() anddumps() to directly transfer an object to/from it's string representation.

Upvotes: 1

jimf
jimf

Reputation: 5147

James,

So what you're doing is completely independent from zipping the lists together. Basically, after you zip the lists, you have a new list that consists of more lists.

After that, you want to save it to a file. Since you have successfully zipped the lists, I assume writing the data structure to a file is what you want.

The easiest way to do this is to 'pickle' the data structure into a file so you can pull it back at a later date - see this link: enter link description here for more info.

Good luck - if it's something else you want to do, let me/us know.

Upvotes: 1

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